We've been growing our engagement with the local community near our Lifelong Learning Centre in Neath Hill, Milton Keynes.
Last year we held a series of regular brunches, which were popular with both the people supported at the Learning Centre and people from the local community. You can read the original news about this here.
This idea of reaching out led to hosting the local Residents' Assocation meetings, connections around mens' mental health and much more.
A Parish Council grant
One of the ways we hoped to continue engagement was opening the space up some more, and we were delighted to receive a grant from the Parish Council to plant a community herb garden.
The OU steps in
This Spring, we were looking for some help to get the herb garden planted up and so we drew on some other connections we'd made, at the Open University.
They were keen to help and offered to send along a team of volunteers. At the time we wondered if they knew what they were letting themselves in for!
We planned to strip back the courtyard area outside our site, and then plant up the area with a wide range of herbs, for both their culinary use and their scent.
A rainy day
So on the day of course it rained - we've seen a lot of that this year, haven't we? But that didn't put off our amazing volunteers. Despite getting absolutely soaked, between us all, we got a huge amount of work done, the OU team cleared the whole area and now it's officially summer, the plants are coming up beautifully.
Such a successful day, and we are so grateful to everyone from the OU who came along. They are always welcome back - maybe for a mug of herb tea!
The whole venture shows the benefits of how small community beginnings help everyone to form important connections, whether they are people who draw on MacIntyre's support, staff members, or people in our neighbourhoods.
