Green Fingers in Grange Villa

Thanks to funding secured through the County Durham Community Foundation we were able to run two activities in Grange Villa.

The Grange Villa Growing Club was for children aged 8-14 to learn about the environment, food growing and preparing simple meals or produce. We met at Pelton Grange Farm in Grange Villa where we grew fruit and vegetables in the raised beds and greenhouse, foraged for fruits in the orchard, meadow and woodland, and prepared food with the produce we harvested.

Over the summer we made mint cordial from the herb garden and in the autumn we juiced apples from the orchard and made blackberry and apple crumble from the blackberries growing wild in the woodlands. The aim of the club was to show young children and their families how easy it can be to produce nutritious food locally and at the same time learn about seasonal food, food waste and environmental issues, learn where their food comes from and try new things.

We also ran fortnightly sessions at Pelton Youth Project‘s youth club in Grange Villa, using food collected from the REfUSE to do creative and fun activities with young people. We have made fruit smoothies with fruit past its ‘best before date’ and experimented with different flavours for roasting pumpkin seeds after a pumpkin carving session. The aim of the sessions was to show how we can turn ingredients that would normally end up as waste into tasty and nutritious dishes.

“The projects delivered by Oliver and Josh were very engaging, professional, well resourced, and interactive.”
“Each session was very well planned and delivered with no shortage of resources, and activities for the young people to engage in.”
George Jones, Youth Project Supervisor, Pelton Youth Project