YOUNG adults who used to visit Evesham Adventure Playground as children returned with The Prince’s Trust to create new flowerbeds and a new eco-classroom.
The students enrolled on the Prince’s Trust Team Programme removed weeds, moved soil, evened out paths, created flowerbeds and helped to build the eco-classroom at the not-for-profit attraction.
Evesham Adventure Playground is run as a charity and provides a safe, supervised space for children, young people and families to enjoy, which also challenges, stimulates and inspires the mind. It has been open for more than 40 years and alongside the adventure playground runs services including a community pantry and a bicycle recycling project.
The local Prince’s Trust Team Programme is based at Evesham College and is delivered in Worcestershire by college group WCG.
A total of eight students were involved in the Evesham Adventure Playground project, with many of them having visited and benefitted from the playground as young children.
Over the course of a week the young people set to work on transforming spaces at the adventure playground, including completing key landscaping works across the site to make it safer for visitors.
It was the first time many of the students were experiencing this type of work and the staff at the playground were so impressed that one student was offered follow-up work experience.
Dave Boucker, programme manager at Evesham Adventure Playground, said: “We are always looking to develop our site and it is ever-changing. The site responds to the needs of the community and children who visit us.
“This summer we are looking to do more with growing plants and flower beds, to help introduce our visitors to gardening, growing vegetables and supporting pollinators.
“We’re on clay soil here so it’s hard to just dig in. The young people came in from The Prince’s Trust and created these beds for us, which we filled with wildflower seeds.
“The students also helped us with creating a new eco classroom, which will be used as part of an alternative education programme for those struggling at school.
“We knew some of them from when they were children, so they immediately felt comfortable on site and fitted in really well into the family we have here. I’d like to thank them all for their hard work!”
Emily Dempsey, Prince’s Trust team leader at WCG, said: “Renovating Evesham Adventure Playground benefits the children in the community by providing a safe and exciting place for children to play.
“In addition, restoring the fences protects the park, building eco classrooms will educate children about the environment, and clearing litter directly helps the environment.
Visit www.wcg.ac.uk/page/25/princes-trust for more information.
