Norris Green Fingers
Norris Green Fingers is a community garden based at St Christopher’s Church in Norris Green. Since 2004, and being Operation Eden’s first supported project, Norris Green Fingers has gone from strength to strength, providing local people with a place to develop their gardening skills and help make an oasis in the community.
Norris Green Fingers approached Faiths4Change for support to help extend the garden areas, so all of the church grounds would benefit from the gardening team’s vision and horticultural skills. They have worked with Merseuy Forest who advised on and donated fruit bushes and small trees, they have their own fig tree and have a small orchard containing other trees from warmer climes. As Clem Pettitt, chief volunteer described when interviewed on Songs of Praise, “I plant the seeds and the vicar prays, and everything just grows!”
The gardens contain a greenhouse and polytunnel, as well as allotment space for local schools and groups. Many volunteer hours are given to keep the gardens looking so stunning and Adult Services, Probation Service, local sheltered housing any mnay others can access the space and bring their own skills and intertests into the gardens.
Rev Mark Coleman, now Vicar of St Mary’s West Derby, supported the project from the very beginning and helped kick start the adventurous idea. Rev Philip the present vicar was attracted to the parish beacause of the sense of community Norris Green Fingers brings to the church and he wholeheartedly supports the initiative and is helping to open it up further to the local community by making the entrance to the church more noticeable and developing the site further.
Many people visit Norris Green Fingers, with representatives from Manchester and Durham Dioceses being inspired and encouraged by the project, and an example to take back to churches in their areas. Songs of Praise were looking for Liverpool projects which highlighted people working together for their programme from Liverpool in May 2009. Faiths4Change was delighted to recommend they contact Norris Green Fingers and so the project has now reached a national audience!
