Wooden cloche is a thank you to Oswestry organisation
Clients at an Oswestry day opportunities centre have said thanks to the town’s community kitchen by making a wooden cloche – to protect plants at a new roof garden.
Shropshire Council has been working with Paul Newman of the Be a Better Fish organisation to give adults with learning disabilities the chance of new experiences and opportunities including spending time at the OsNosh community kitchen.
Clients also attend the Avalon Day Opportunities Centre in Oswestry, and Maesbury Metals where they can learn metal and woodworking skills.
For the past 18 months staff and service users from Avalon and Maesbury Metals have been joining the team at Osnosh every Friday to serve at Osnosh foodshare tables and helping in the kitchen.
Mr Newman said it also gave service users the chance to socialise in the inclusive atmosphere.
He said: “Maesbury Metals offered to help the service users build some items for the new OsNosh community garden as a way of saying thank you for the welcome they received.
“They made a fabulous cloche for the terraced roof garden – and there’s more to come.”
Claire Jones, Shropshire Council’s locality lead for day services, said volunteering sessions at OsNosh had been a rewarding experience for the staff and service users.
She said: “Our aim is to offer new experience and opportunities for our service users, and volunteering at OsNosh has been a very rewarding way of supporting them to work alongside other volunteers and customers. We were delighted to be able to give something back by making the garden equipment.”
OsNosh community interest company, based at The Centre in Oak Street, Oswestry, uses food that is destined to go to waste to create healthy well-balanced meals. The surplus food is donated by the local community, food producers and businesses.
The group runs twice weekly food share sessions at its community kitchens at The Centre on Wednesday and Fridays, where hot take away meals are served from 11.30am.
The OsNosh team, which includes up to 10 volunteers, is also currently developing a community garden at The Centre to give local people the chance to grow their own food and provide fresh produce for the community kitchen.
Elliot Bastos of OsNosh said that the wooden cloche would be a very useful addition in the new garden at The Centre.
He said: “Our community garden will reinforce the OsNosh message of fighting food poverty and inequality as well as preventing food waste.
"The fact that this equipment has been made by people who have played a part in delivering that ethos is really important to OsNosh. So we would like to say a big thank you to the services users and Maesbury Metals for thinking of us.
Further information about OsNosh can be found at https://osnosh.co.uk/ or on Facebook at OsNosh – Oswestry Community Kitchen.
