Green Space project transforms Rotherham school community garden

A garden at a Rotherham primary school has been given an upgrade by volunteers from Mears Group.

The green space project saw volunteers makeover an outside area at Ferham Primary School in Kimberworth, turning it into a community garden.

Eight employees from Mears Rotherham branch spent two days working on site as part of their commitment to social value in the community, supported by a grant from Mears Foundation, the organisation's charitable arm. The transformation involved clearing and refreshing the existing raised beds and planters, planting a variety of bulbs, winter flowering varieties and bee bombs for wildflowers. They also installed bird feeding stations and stocked them with wild bird seed.

The area has been set up in such a way that it's safe and accessible for the children, so they can be responsible for looking after the plants over the coming months. Some of the children also helped with the planting during the project and enjoyed learning from the volunteers' gardening knowledge.

Waste pallets supplied by YESSS Electrical in Rotherham were transformed into a 'bug hotel' which the Key Stage 2 children were able to fill with found insects, while cable drums were turned into toadstool stools to create an outdoor classroom area for use during forest school sessions.

A wormery was also created from surplus materials supplied by the Mears team, with the filling materials donated by local supplier, HuwsGray. Every child and staff member enjoyed the opportunity to add a worm, and, over time, the resource will enable classes to study their movement and how they breakdown leaf matter.

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Vikki Fenton, Headteacher, at Ferham Primary School, commented:

The volunteers were amazing with our children, and we are so thankful that the children could be involved in such a fantastic opportunity. They have not stopped playing in the garden since the visit.The project has not only shown our children what beautiful green spaces are, it has also given them a green space of their very own in which they can explore, relax, and engage with nature - for many, for the first time in their young lives. It was fantastic to see the delight on their faces on finding a tiny bug or the pride they felt when they had created a lovely pot of flowers.

Diane Keay, Customer Success Manager for Mears said:

This was a fantastic opportunity to give something back to the local community and also a chance for our team to take part in a project which was vastly different from their day-to day-work. This project follows on from other work we have undertaken with the school which is close to our base at New York Stadium, and we hope the relationship will continue to develop.

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