A huge pile of manure for St Brendan's!
St. Brendan's 6th form college in Bristol started their year with a steaming pile of manure!
Having chosen to support RAIN as their charity for 2020, the first step was to source materials - all of which were donated. Easy Access Scaffolding supplied the planks, Geneco Waste delivered 12 tonnes of manure, and a group of parents and students rolled up with wheelbarrows to build a nursery. Within a few hours the saplings donated by The Woodland Trust were settling in to their new home.
The next step was to fundraise for a twin school. In just two weeks of cake sales and sponsored tree pushes, they had raised the £600 needed to build a nursery in Brazil. Watch this space over the next weeks for news on the twin school.
Students will tend the saplings until November, when they will be planted out to extend woodlands near to the school. Bristol is prone to flooding, and planting trees naturally reduces the risk because the leaves and roots slow down the movement of rain through the system. In Brazil there is the threat of drought as well as flooding, and extensive deforestation has caused the rivers and streams in many areas to dry up. Our schools in Brazil are beginning to reforest their surroundings, starting with degraded springs to bring them back to life.
Geography teacher Sophie Preece, who was coordinating the project, is optimistic about the impacts of their work:
“With all the flooding at the moment it has been great to do something that will empower the students to change their landscape. We only used 7 tonnes of the compost - with the rest we’re planning to start an allotment on school grounds ”
St. Brendan's is RAIN's first project in the UK. Sophie and her team have been preparing teaching materials and documents that care of some of the admin, smoothing the way for others to follow the same path - and they are following! We've already been contacted by several more schools interested in starting the programme.
If your school has a few metres of grass or concrete then you have all you need to get started.
Visit Pioneers to learn more.
Special thanks to Geneco Waste for the compost, Easy Access Scaffolding for the wood, and the students and staff of St. Brendan's for getting their hands dirty.
