Garden party for the Borough of Rochdale Fund

Rochdale Pensioners Association enjoy a cup of tea

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The vicarage gardens at the parish church, Broadfield, was the venue for the first ever Council for Voluntary Service Rochdale garden party, in aid of the Borough of Rochdale Fund today (Thursday 8 July).

With numerous stalls selling paintings to plants, scones to shortbread, coffee to cakes and almost everything in between, there was something for everybody.

Rochdale Connections Trust also had a stall selling cakes and showcasing their work.

The event ran from 1.00-4.00pm and the weather was kind throughout.

Various community groups were in attendance such as Rochdale Pensioners Association who were: “Having a good time and supporting the cause.”

Kathy Shaw, chief executive of the Council For Voluntary Service and today’s organiser, described what was going on with fund: “We’ve got an opportunity through a government initiative that meant every pound we make is matched through donations from local businesses.

“We decided that we would try and fundraise as much as possible so we started selling lunches in offices and we put up stalls.

“We decided to do the event today to use the gardens because we’ve not used the space yet.

“We’ve had great support and it’s been a good environment. We feel it’s been such a success, were planning on making it an annual event”

Councillor Keith Swift was at the event and said: “It’s been a wonderful day and has been well attended, it’s been a pleasure to be in the gardens and I hope to see more events in the future.”

Kathy went on to describe some of the plan the group have for the future: “We want to make the garden into a community garden and introduce a vegetable patch which will be kept up by the local school.

“We want to make the garden open to everyone, so were making it wheelchair friendly. We’ll continue raising funds through fundraising events like today.”

Speaking on the community garden idea, Councillor Swift said: “Projects such as the community garden provide opportunities for people to learn and develop new skills such as teamwork. People will make new friends and can lead to job opportunities so I wish everyone well.”