Raising awareness of allotments and the role they play in helping people to live healthier lifestyles
Graeme recently visited Sustainable Kirriemuir to discuss the positive impact of being outside.
Sustainable Kirriemuir are a group of people who put climate action into practice, protecting nature and build a stronger future for our community.
National Allotments Week started in 2002 as a way of raising awareness of allotments and the role they play in helping people to live healthier lifestyles, grow their own food, develop friendships and bolster communities. The campaign week is still thriving 20 years later and interest in growing your own fruit and vegetables has never been stronger since the WW2 Grow for Victory campaign.
Sustainable Kirriemuir demonstrates the real strength of grass roots action, growing food, skills health and resilience in one project. Their mission is to help people understand the effects of climate change and to provide real opportunities to mitigate and adapt to climate change and strengthen community resilience. Sustainable Kirriemuir are working for their local community, its economy and its infrastructure.
Graeme visited Sustainable Kirriemuir’s Northmuir Primary School where he spoke with Kate Munro and Emily Hutchison about how growing local food has helped hundreds of young people to learn how to grow and eat better. Kirriemuir schools have grown over a tonne of fresh local food during the project.
– Graeme
I was very pleased to meet with Kate and Emily at Sustainable Kirriemuir to discuss how we can increase availability of locally grown food.
It was very encouraging to hear of the success of their 2-year project called Nourish Kirriemuir where the 3 Kirriemuir schools grew 1.14 tonnes of local food. They teamed up with Kirrie Food Hub to cut local food waste by over 20 tonnes.
Sustainable Kirriemuir are community led, they have small teams of volunteers working on food growing, cutting waste and active travel. There is always more to be done, everyone has power to make a difference. I am looking forward to seeing the success of more projects in the future.
– Sustainable Kirriemuir Chair, Kate Munro
It is great to meet Graeme and share our story with him. As we witness a cost of living, climate, and biodiversity crises it’s clear they are all linked. Growing local food grows skills, habits and networks that support health in people and land, here right here right now. Local communities like ours, show how to tackle all of this and show the path to a better future for all of us.
We all eat, we don’t all eat well. The work done here at the school gardens, allotments, community garden and the food hub in Kirriemuir demonstrate that when we work together, we all have power to tackle the big stuff. That’s amazing. With action comes hope.
