Supporting the local community and environment in Birmingham
Do you have a project that will help improve your local community, the environment, or both in Birmingham?
Veolia's Sustainability Fund could help your project come to life with a grant, in-kind resources or volunteers.
The funding scheme offers cash-donations of up to £1000 for community or environmental projects within the city.
Applications are now closed.
Here are some snapshots of how Birmingham non-profit groups have spent community funding previously:
Stechford Village Neighbourhood Forum
It’s Your Neighbourhood
Stechford Village Neighbourhood Forum used their funding to transform derelict land by installing railway sleepers to create raised beds suitable for volunteers using wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches. Wide pathways were also installed between the raised beds for ease of access. This gave volunteers the ability to get involved with planting fruit, vegetables and herbs on the grounds at the Stechford Baptist Church.
Faydene Gillings-Grant led the project and oversaw the crops harvested from the project being used to compliment the food provision at the food bank that is also located at the same grounds.
Carole O'Boyle, Committee member, Stechford in Bloom, said "I would sincerely like to thank Veolia for the funds they provided, enabling us to build the raised beds at the back of All Saints Church. This gave a real feel-good factor to the community and transformed an overgrown wilderness into a worthwhile and much appreciated area which we are sure will go on for many years."
Friends of Masefield Community Garden
Masefield’s Ecotots
The Masefield Ecotots project has allowed more than 70 children to take part in food growing activities, exploring games to learn about flora/fauna as well as plenty of other sensory activities and natural crafts during the sessions delivered by Friends of Masefield Community Garden.
Children have been involved in planting root vegetables and flowers in a prepared bed, planting a bean teepee, learning about the life cycle of butterflies and creating colourful bunting to illustrate this. They also made their own bugs out of clay and made a scarecrow for the garden.
The project has encouraged some of the Friends of Masefield members to get more involved with the family activities rather than ‘just’ take care of gardening and maintenance of the site.
Summerfield Residents Association
Fresh Produce All Year Round
The volunteers at Summerfield Residents Association used the funding to build a system for heating plant beds in one of their greenhouses using the heat from waste food composting to heat water and piping it through the soil to grow plants through the winter.
This revolutionary process is environmentally friendly and converts waste food from the Eye Hospital in Birmingham and other local businesses into compost. The flowers that come from planting in the winter time are provided for street boxes and hanging baskets, brightening up the local area.
Chris Vaughan, Chair at Summerfield Residents Association said, “Thanks to Veolia, we were able to complete our project of producing fresh, out-of-season vegetables using organically created energy.
This, in turn, gave us the standing to team-up with a well-established third sector organisation and secure the future of the project.”