A PROJECT helping a community to respond to climate change and cost of living is beginning to bear fruit.

The Parish of St Ive Community Resilience Project received National Lottery Funding of £10,000 earlier this year to run a series of events for local people.

The aims of the year-long project are to build on the strengths of the community, and to pull together to meet any future challenges with confidence. The project will focus on local energy, food, social and environmental needs.

One key focus is a community garden, being created on land next to the church in St Ive.

“We finished planting our hedges and fruit trees in the community garden in March and we are now looking at the next stages of the design for the site, and funding sources,” said trustee Fiona Wood. “We are also hoping to link up with other local charities.”

Thanks to the Lottery funding, a part-time member of staff has been taken on for four hours per week. Sian Bush, from Pensilva, has joined the team as project coordinator: an artist, mother and environmental enthusiast, Sian teaches arts and crafts as well as producing and selling her work locally.

A series of events has now been planned, with the first to take place over the Jubilee Bank Holiday.

The Together Project will have a stall outside Millennium House in Pensilva on Friday (June 3)  during the tabletop safari — and on the field at the back on the Saturday Gala day.

“The intention is to try to drum up interest in what we are doing and have conversations about local food, living more sustainably and as a more connected community,” says Fiona. “We will have an ‘If I were King or Queen for the Day’ activity and also a food past, present and future activity.”

On Sunday, June 19, there will be a Father’s Day Big Picnic with an art exhibition by children from Pensilva and Quethiock school and pre-school, and some environmental and garden activities, including bug hotel making and leaf printing bunting.

Meanwhile, over the summer members of the group plan to stage an event about improving energy efficiency in homes, and to launch an advice point for people in fuel poverty.

In October its hoped that local people will come together to create a climate action plan for the Parish of St Ive.