BOSSES and staff at the intu Braehead shopping mall dug deep to help create a new vegetable garden for pupils at a Paisley primary school.
Not only did the shopping centre donate £2,000 to the project, organised by Young Enterprise Scotland, staff also volunteered to do some of the hard work preparing the ground for the raised beds and building the sheltered outdoor classroom at Todholm Primary.
Almost 20 staff from intu Braehead cleared weeds, shrubs and trees, laid a new path, painted and helped build the outdoor classroom as part of the company’s initiative to pay staff to do charity or community work.
Youngsters will now be able to grow their own vegetables, which will be cooked as part of their school dinners, or sold on to raise funds for the school.
The Young Enterprise Scotland team led by co-ordinator, James Ward, involved the pupils and staff at every stage of construction of the outdoor classroom and edible garden.
Lynne McGinn, head teacher at Todholm Primary, said: “This process which very much included pupil input helped the children to gain a real sense of learning for work and helped to give them ownership and pride on completion of the project.
“We are extremely grateful to Young Enterprise Scotland and intu Braehead, for without their support we would never have been able to achieve such wonderful results in such a short period of time.
“We are now in a position to further develop quality outdoor learning opportunities for our children, who are keen to get to work in their new learning environment.
“They are motivated and very excited about planting and growing their own food. We are also hoping that this will lead to excellent enterprise opportunities by encouraging the children to set up and run a small business, selling some of their produce.”
Gary Turnbull, intu Braehead’s general manager, said: “This is a great project for the pupils at Todholm as it not only gives them the chance to learn about plants and vegetables, but they also get practical experience of planting, growing and harvesting their produce.
“I’m sure the youngsters will soon have a good market garden going with plenty fresh vegetables being grown.
“At intu Braehead we see ourselves as playing a part in the local community and supporting this project is just one of the ways in which we are doing this.”
ENDS
MEDIA RELEASE issued by Macdonald Media. You too can post your story ideas for journalists (aka press or media releases), on allmediascotland.com. Email here for more information.
Check out twitter.com/nonstopstories for your very own media releases feed…
Check out too twitter.com/allEducationPR, plus twitter.com/allGlasgowPR.
To catch up on all the media releases recently posted on to allmediascotland.com, you need only click the link icon that you see towards the bottom right of our two media release ‘gateway boxes’.
It’s this icon, here. It’s your route straight into the rich archive.
—
Macdonald Media contact details…
Contact: Norman Macdonald
Phone: 07958648814
Email: norman@macdonald-media.co.uk
Website: http://www.macdonald-media.co.uk
