Chyan Community Field

This project (to be found at Halvasso, off the A394) started in October 2002. It was an empty overgrown two acre field which in the last 7 years has been developed by volunteers and members to include allotments; which can be rented by field members for £15 a year, including use of tools and tea shed; a pond, straw bale tea-shed and tool store, sensory garden, composting area, covered cob seat, playground and community orchard.

This organisation's latest Cornwall Community Foundation assisted project is to develop the Chyan Environmental Play Trail, to make it accessible to all local people; to build elements of the trail with local youth groups, disabled groups and schools and to create pathways and signage to explain environmental features and sustainability to all. An apple press and open air classroom are on the future agenda.

Three grants from CCF totalling £14,500 have helped sustain this growth, from wilderness to accessible interactive space. The positive difference that this space can make to the families, individuals and groups who make use of it would be difficult at best to put a price to!

Launceston’s Community Garden

Dreadnought, Launceston, works with 8 – 19 year olds who are experiencing problems in their lives. We provide positive adults who listen and support children and young people in a safe environment such as in our Launceston centre on St Thomas Road. Many of our young people expressed a wish to “get out in the fresh air” and perhaps do some gardening.

Our young people took up the challenge of designing their own garden. With a few donations from the public (including basic tools) the children, young people and volunteers began work on the garden. With lots of ideas but very little money we applied to various organisations for funding. The CCF kindly approved a £300 grant for our garden project. This grant enabled us to begin putting our ideas into action.

Thanks to the grant from CCF, our garden soon started to take shape and has been transformed into a beautiful, welcoming community garden.

Because we have many volunteers and members of the public coming to support our garden project, young people are seeing first-hand that people of all ages want to help each other and work together, and young and old are greeting each other, breaking down preconceptions on both sides.

The garden is now officially open to the community, and we have had grandparents visiting with their grandchildren, enjoying the calming atmosphere in the garden, especially when the sun is shining!

The most amazing result of our project, in my opinion, is the visible impact that it has made on the confidence and self-esteem of our young people; receiving praise from members of the public about the garden’s progress has been a huge boost to them, and shows that people of all ages working together in a community can make a positive difference.

Lesley, Dreadnought Launceston