"What do we have in our hands that God can use?"
In just a few years, a patch of land in the middle of an Aylesbury estate has become a beating heart of the community - a space for intergenerational relationships and a place of learning and growth. Now, St Peter's are offering their knowledge and support across the diocese at the Community Garden Conference – How to Start And Grow a Community Garden on Saturday 14 May. Book your place now on Eventbrite.
The Revd Pete Wheeler, vicar at St Peter’s Aylesbury, shares his experience of developing a community garden below.
To look ‘appreciatively’ at something, is to discover, ‘What do we have in our hands that God can use?’. Having started a process of planting/revitalisation at St Peter’s Aylesbury in early 2018, it might have seemed the answer was ‘very little’ at first – a somewhat dilapidated 60s building with just one small side room, situated on a large patch of land in the middle of the estate. But we were ready to listen, discover and join in with all that God was doing and calling us to.
Come 2022, and the StPA Community Garden is now an amazing tool for mission in our wonderful estate community! We have a Community Garden Facilitator, Lizzie Telfer, whose role is to enable the use of the garden not only for local residents, but in partnership with local organisations too. We regularly welcome the Youth Offenders Probation Service, where young adults learn new skills in landscaping and horticulture that can get them back into employment, local schools, including the PACE centre, and the Bucks Adult Education Centre, as well as referrals from the local GP surgery, known as social prescribing.
Addressing poverty and inequality
Whilst the Quarrendon estate is a great place to live in Aylesbury, the Community Garden helps us tackle some of the markers of deprivation we find here: health and wellbeing, loneliness and isolation, education and skills, and poverty affecting both seniors and children, all exacerbated by the pandemic.
Our Community Garden therefore helps local people:
improve mental health and wellbeing;- keep physically fit and undertake regular exercise;
- engage in intergenerational relationships;
- learn how to interact and care for the environment;
- be part of a team, and create a sense of empowerment and purpose;
- learn practical skills in gardening, horticulture and soft landscaping;
- enjoy growing seasonal food and cooking/eating healthily;
- improve the appearance of their open spaces in the community.
Fresh fruit and vegetables from the Community Garden are distributed at our food bank and shared out to local residents. Some raised beds have QR codes, so that anyone can watch a video showing how to use the produce - you can have a look at one here.
A Church family who welcome and love
Best of all, the StPA Community Garden causes local people to come into contact with a church family who welcome and love them. It ushers people into an encounter with Jesus and further into a reconciling relationship with God, each other, themselves and creation. It facilitates creative worship and our outward response. Through the week, relationships are built and seeds are sown. Faith is nurtured and grown here. There is the potential of a new worshipping community that gathers in and around the garden and our Garden Team are part of our local Greenhouse.
As a tool, the Community Garden helps us engage with all five Marks of Mission – proclaiming the gospel, nurturing faith, acts of loving kindness, transforming unjust structures, and caring for God’s creation.
You would be surprised how small a patch of land you can start a community garden on! It certainly doesn’t have to be located at your church – it could be near your house, or in your estate.
If you would like to learn more, why not come to our Community Garden Conference – How To Start And Grow A Community Garden? It’s on Saturday 14 May, hosted at St Peter's, Aylesbury, by the North Aylesbury Resource Network (NARNiA). Tickets are £5 (although we would not want cost to stop anyone from attending), available now.
The Revd Pete Wheeler
Vicar, St Peter’s Aylesbury
Part of the North Aylesbury Resource Network
St Peter's Church, Aylesbury, is a revitalised church plant in the 60s estate of Quarrendon in the heart of Aylesbury. The StPA Community Garden facilitates contextual mission, community cohesion, wholeness and wellbeing, a reduction of poverty and deprivation, and creative worship.
Join the Community Garden Conference – How To Start And Grow A Community Garden on Saturday 14 May. Book now on Eventbrite.