Apprentices' community project gives brighter futures

Post by Apprentice CSA Ryan Williams:

We have just last week, handed back our completed community project to the staff and residents over at Stockport Cerebral Palsy Day Centre.

In selecting the community project that we were going to undertake, we wanted to ensure that whatever we did should have the capacity to make a real impact - so after much deliberation we decided on Stockport CP - a care centre for people of all ages who suffer some form of mental disability.

Its premises contain an outdoor area originally intended to be a ‘sensory garden’ - an area in which the service users of the centre can stimulate their senses visually and kinetically and generally enjoy themselves.

Unfortunately, a lack of resources and available staff and a busy schedule of caring for the residents meant that this was never fully realised and was left in a state of disrepair for a number of years. This also left many residents unable to go anywhere near to the gardens due to the lack of wheelchair access.

It occurred to us that we could be of a great deal of service so we drew up a plan of action and began work on the garden on Thursday of last week.

After removing a substantial amount of waste and debris, we started by repairing and renovating whatever features of the garden were still useable so as to keep the budget low.

Strengthening and painting the benches, cleaning and rearranging a selection of stones and salvaging as much timber as possible.  We then used said timber to erect a planter for the staff and members of the organisation the use at a later date for planting flowers of their choosing.

With the soil surrounding the perimeter free of rubble and smoothed over we were able to lay a large patch of turf to accompany the small covering of gravel we had applied to another patch of earth.

After a final, more thorough cleaning of the ground and the three large planters now standing solid, we painted the fences, polished the mirrors and reattached the wind chimes that had been left since we started and placed a variety of bright, colourful decorative items and flowerpots in certain areas across the now spacious, safe and enjoyable space.

Only a week later, it’s the day of the hand over and the staff seem very pleased with the end results - a reaction superseded only by the utter joy of the service users upon seeing the new space that they would now have full use of during their recreation time. The relocation of the day centres rabbit during the project also ended up with us all having a personal introduction to him.

I think I speak for every one of the apprentices when I say that the sense of pride having made such a difference was overwhelming. We have said we may go back once the weather improves to help the residents start planting things in the new flowerbeds. We would just like to wish everyone at Stockport CP a bright future in continuing and further developing the excellent work they do for the community.