Garden day cash to fund village revamp
AN OPEN garden weekend has raised £1,000s for good causes.
The Three Villages Open Weekend was organised by volunteers Maggie Earl and Pauline Stuart, who signed up to help spruce up the village after residents voted for more attention to be given to green spaces.
They have been working with Martin Brown, from the Parish Council Steering Committee, to raise enough money to plant more shrubs and flowers around Sutton, Lyme Green and Langley and help improve the general attractiveness of the area.
Thirty homeowners from across Sutton, Lyme Green and Langley threw open their homes to visitors over a weekend, with money raised from tickets sales going towards community funds to buy bulbs and herbs to plant.
Pauline Stuart, who lives in Sutton and opened up her own garden for the event, said: “When the Parish Plan survey was done one of the things a lot of people said they wanted was beautifying the public spaces, so Maggie and I volunteered to help with that. We raised around £3,000 which we are thrilled with. The feedback has been extremely favourable. It was a very sociable event.”
The Fenwick family, who live in Sutton, also took the opportunity to open their garden for the weekend and, in addition to ticket sales, chose to donate the proceeds from a barbecue and cake sale to the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association.
Colin Fenwick, 50, who has MND and wants to support the charity in the hope of finding a cure for the disease, said: “The cafe we ran at the three villages Open Gardens event was incredibly busy and we have to say that the people who helped us both at the event and by providing cakes were awesome.
“We raised a total of £1470 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and David Rutley visited us yesterday and signed the MNDA charter.
“We certainly got a lot of praise from our customers and some people who had originally visited us on the Saturday as part of the Open Gardens, returned on Sunday even though they were no longer doing the Open Gardens tour. We also had people calling their friends advising them to come to us for lunch.
“Although it was hard work I think everyone felt it was incredibly worthwhile.
“We’d raised a reasonable sum for the Motor Neurone Disease Association but had also increased awareness of the condition locally.”