Liverpool YMCA

Allotments Group (Peoples Harvest)

The idea of an allotment group came about when a YMCA member, Dennis, approached Mildmay House Men’s Hostel after hearing that they had an allotment at St Brides Church in Liverpool city centre, he invited some staff members from Mildmay to attend a meeting with his key worker at the YMCA (Peter) to gauge what support the YMCA could give him and if they would like to take part?

The meeting went really well with an idea being floated to form an allotments co-operative to grow food for homeless hostels and  homeless day centre clients and excess food would be given to the cities soup kitchens to supplement there meager foods stocks. Another meeting was quickly arranged and attended by staff from the Men’s Direct homeless hostel in Green Lane Liverpool.

Other groups including The Whitchapel Centre, the Basement drop in centre, The Big Issue North West, the Old Eldonians, Urban food, Addaction and Bosco House hostel asked to be kept informed of our progress and would come to later meetings.

At the meeting it was agreed on a 3 way pilot project with Mildmay House, Mens Dac and the YMCA, starting work the very next week (24th April) on a small peace of land adjoining St Bride’s church in the city centre. The day finally arrived and we started work with a blue sky and lots of sun on our backs! All 3 hostels provided staff and clients and the site was quickly dug over and planted with the flowers and vegetables. Before we knew it, we had to go back to the hostel as clients had appointments etc, so it was agreed to return first thing the next day and plant the reminder of our stock.
The next morning at 6.45am staff and members met up in the YMCA and went over to St brides Church and finished off the planting with help from the Mildmay House team.

The next allotments day will see the groups putting up some netting on the site and planting some flowers. Then the following week the groups will start plating vegetables in the grounds of the Mens Dac hostel in Green Lane Liverpool.

Following on from our meetings we have been asked by the Big Issue North West if we would be interested in putting together a homeless garden at the Southport show in August 2010.

We have also been approached by the BTCV to see if we would help them grow/plant tree saplings in a project they are setting up in Clarks Gardens park in south Liverpool.
I would like to thank all members and staff who have supported this project and hope we can keep up this worth while work!

The Peoples Harvest - Dennis's Story

I was on the streets for about 6 weeks and trying to find a place to stay.  I was Interviewed at the YMCA and moved in on the 1st  February  2010 , with no money or food, I was given a food pack by  a member of staff, however that did not last 10 minutes because I was starving . Next day I received a crisis loan for about £24.00 I phoned them back and asked them when will they are  sending  the rest (joke).

 I lived off NOODLES all that week, and that got me thinking (I can’t afford the high price of shopping for fruit and vegetables) why not try and get some land and grow my own. I asked YMCA If they had any land (they did) but I was unlucky they had started building work on that site.

Off I go on a mission around all the hostels and soup kitchens in the “pool” and viola MILDMAY HOSTEL had a small plot donated by ST BRIDES CHURCH, I booked a appointment with Jason, one of the managers of the Mildmay hostel and all went well; since that first meeting a lot of good thing have started to materialize.

For example, people who have joined our group or have shown an interest are YMCA, Mildmay, Salvation Army, Mens Dac, Whitechaple, The Basement, The Eldonians, Barclays Bank, Urban foods, Liverpool city council and others.

We started work on the ST Brides site this month and we have a mixture of produce growing there and things are looking good.

16 people turned up to do a bit of this and a bit of that on the start day, we all had a good laugh, a brilliant lunch lashed with loads of tea and coffee, the weather was brilliant to.
I am asking you could you be 17,18 19th person to help this project to take off, it won’t cost you a carrot and you will soon be eating a good balanced diet and also donating food to the local “drop-ins” like the “Basement and the Whitechapel centre “.

The next event will be on the 23rd of this month which is a Friday and starting at around noon.

End note: We have now acquired a large plot of land in Tuebrook from Mens DAC and as time goes by we are hoping to be able to do educational courses on growing food and certificates will be awarded for your efforts.

For you to think about, a cauliflower costs about a pound to buy, a packet of seeds costs 60 pence and has about 1000 potential cauliflowers.

May I say thanks to all who have made this possible and thanks to all who will be joining us in the future!

YMCA Member Dennis

 LIVERPOOL HOMELESS HOSTELS FOOD ALLIANCE

Liverpool YMCA has been working in close partnership with Mildmay House, a local homeless hostel, for a number of years. This relationship has generally been focussed on the delivery of supported housing to local people who are either homeless, or at sever risk of becoming so. In early 2010, Liverpool YMCA ,Mildmay House and Men's Direct Homeless Hostel had in-depth discussions in relation to the expansion of pre-existing allotment scheme. This had been operating for a short while and only on a small, limited basis. This was really the inception point of the Liverpool Allotment Alliance. It was decided that the Alliance's prime objective is to grow fresh foods on disused plots of land around the City, with the active and full engagement of local homeless people. Produce derived from the sites will be shared among the participating hostels with a view the homeless feeding the homeless. There are currently 12 hostels, 2 homeless day centres, and 1 resource centre involved in the Alliance, across 9 growing / storage sites.
Initially, the Alliance was attended by a nucleus of regular individual members, all of whom thoroughly enjoyed the horticultural experience. It was noticed that the respective service users' behaviour, confidence, self-esteem and general approach to life had been positively affected by their participation. Through open and active consultation with service users, along with wider stakeholders, we have established that a genuine need exists and that the respective target user group would hugely benefit. Liverpool YMCA uses the Outcome Star model as its primary support planning and outcome-capturing tool.
For 2011 our alliance members will build four 14ft x 40ft Polytunnels from scaffold tubing, mains water piping and polithern horticulture film, each plolytunnel will have 560sq ft of growing space which equates to 13440 seedling plants per tunnel giving a grand total for the 4 tunnels of 53760 plants being seeded and growing ready for planting in spring, we will plant the ten most popular variety's of vegetables including carrots, potatoes, cucumbers cauliflowers onions etc we believe this facility will be able to grow up to 8 seed circles per year amounting to 430080 plants to feed our members this will be our main centre for distributing the plants out to all our other growing sites were they will grow into full sized vegetables' to be harvested and eaten, we believe that this will greatly increase of chances of bringing fresh vegetables' to our homeless community's and the pollytunnel site will become the most important site in the alliances work.