A Kinross charity which aims to promote the benefits and joys of nature and gardening to everyone in their community has won the first ever Binn Group Charity Clean-Up Competition.
Scotland’s leading independent recycling and waste management company has pledged a manpower and services package worth £2000 to help “clean up” for a worthy cause.
The competition attracted entries from across Tayside and Fife with judges finally selecting Milnathort & Kinross Allotments Association as their worthy winner. The prize will allow the charity, formed in 2013, to remove vegetation and rubble from their three-acre site at the rear of Dobbie’s Garden Centre in Kinross, making way for an extended community garden featuring a new sensory garden, a forest garden, community orchard and bee hives.
A delighted Association treasurer Rory Stewart said the prize would prove a “real boost” to the project allowing volunteers to press ahead with the next phase of the community scheme.
“We have had a great deal with our initial 30 allotments and community garden,” he explained, “but we want to extend this provision and expand the experiences and opportunities for everyone in the community.
The site is so contaminated by old concrete, building materials, rubble and weeds that we were taking one step forward and two back in our efforts to clear it.” The Binn Group prize will re-energise everyone and leave us with a much more manageable site on which to dig, landscape and plant.
“Everyone involved is absolutely delighted to win this generous prize and we can’t thank Binn Group enough for choosing our charity. We look forward to pressing ahead with them as soon as possible.”
Glenfarg-based Binn Group’s Chief Executive Allan MacGregor said the Milnathort & Kinross Allotments Association played a key role in involving all sectors of the community in an “outstanding project”.
“The project touches all parts of the Milnathort and Kinross community,” he said. “People who have never gardened before through to the dedicated green-fingered experts. It’s also a place where those with special needs can work alongside the young and the elderly and enjoy the beautiful space created by everyone.
“We at Binn Group are delighted to help drive the project onto its next phase. Clearing sites and removing waste can be a daunting task for a charity or community group but this is all in a day’s work for Binn Group and we’re happy to supply men and resources to tackle this problem for such a worthwhile cause.”
The prize package includes five operatives for a day as well as skips and removal of all waste from the site.