Help Riverside Community Garden Rebuild Our Community Shed

Riverside Community Garden's large community space that we use as a tea shed during gardening sessions was completely burnt down on Saturday night. This devastation has left us without a dedicated space for our community to gather for refreshments, breaks and social time during our gardening sessions twice a week.

We are fundraising to fully rebuild the community space, cooking area, and associated things we will need to replace such as tables and chairs, notice boards and handwash station.

We have been bowled over by the wider communities' support for our community garden. Our volunteers have been facing such a terrible event that brings us all great sadness with camaraderie and warmth for each other, showing amazing resilience and positivity for the future.

Lewis and Adrian have used their ingenuity to set up a great space in the polytunnel for temporary tea breaks for our sessions going forward until we have planned, raised funds and are able to rebuild the community space.

Cardiff Salad Garden manages the Riverside Community Garden and currently provides 2 community gardening sessions on Wednesdays and Fridays for people to enjoy the physical and mental health benefits of joining in gardening activities. This is funded through WCVA Volunteering Wales.

This space is so important as a space to meet and chat, keep out of the rain, cold or summer heat, it's more than a shed, it's a space we all feel at home and can take a break from the stresses of life to come together as a community.

We will be holding a number of planning sessions with our volunteers to rebuild with the space as best as it can be - to serve the needs of the garden now. As we plan the renewal we want to keep to our green ethos, reusing as much reclaimed materials and green building ideas as is feasible.

Any surplus funds raised will be used to improve the associated community garden site buildings, security and accessibility to the community garden.