We are delighted to have been awarded the Tree Council Trees and Learning Award with Willow Dene School in Greenwich at the London Tree and Woodland Awards, or the Tree Oscars as they are widely known across London. This comes at a great time as we get ready to bring the magic of orchards to many more people across the capital.
Along with Willow Dene School we received the award at a ceremony hosted by the Mayor of London yesterday evening, 26th May, for our collaboration on a newly planted orchard with and for the students of the school. It comes just before The Orchard Project gears up for its new Greater London Authority and Heritage Lottery Fund funded project that will see the restoration of 30 of London’s lost orchards and a new London community juicing enterprise.
Our Project Manager, Lewis McNeil went along to receive the award and said:
“We are thrilled to receive this award recognising the great work we have done alongside Willow Dene School in creating an orchard for their pupils and staff. We look forward to seeing the new Mayor of London continue to support the important community food growing and tree planting projects that exist across the capital.”
The Orchard Project and Willow Dene School created an orchard at the school containing twelve different varieties of fruit tree with every pupil at Willow Dene helping to plant the orchard, by either watering, digging or planting.
Seven year old Ahmad, a student at Willow Dene School who was a part of the planting day alongside his classmates, said:
“I like helping in the orchard. I helped to plant the apple trees, and now I help to water them. I try to visit the orchard every day to check if there are apples on the tree. There are pink and white flowers growing.”
Watch this space for more news on our new London-wide community orchard project, “A Celebration of Orchards”, which we’re launching later this year. It will run for three years and involve thousands of people and communities across London in a huge orchard enterprise.
