How Carla built her community

St James housing estate has no gardens, parks, green space or community centres, meaning no space to grow plants, play or even to socialise.

At the centre of the estate an old allotment site lay dormant and unused for years. A lack of ownership and water meant nothing had grown for years. But all that was set to change when local man Danny Kilifin, 51, and his daughter Carla, 25, received funding from National Lottery supported Grow Wild, to grow wild flowers and fruit trees on the site, creating a Garden of Hope for the people of St James.

“Creating the garden gave me something to do – like, instead of just standing on street corners and getting into trouble like I used to,” Carla says.

“After my mummy died I went through a rough patch, out drinking and that. I’d go to the graveyard and it would just make me sad and in a mood. But now I can go to the garden and it cheers me up.

“It’s brought me and my daddy closer as well. I love working beside him, we can have a laugh. It’s changed my life.”

The first problem Carla had to solve was the lack of water to the site.

“We know everyone in the area and there was a girl across from the site who let us run a hose from her house, through a hole in her wall. Everyone’s pitched in to help; it’s really brought the community together,” she says.

As more and more locals became involved with the garden things soon began to grow, with wild flowers and fruit trees becoming the catalyst for something even bigger. Today, St James Garden of Hope is a fully fledged inner city farm with chickens, pigs, goats, ducks, rabbits and, of course, wild flowers.

“When it first started people didn’t think it would turn out as brilliant as it has. They thought the kids would just wreck the place, but now they’re up here at 7am before school.

“It’s really changed us. St James was a very dark place, everybody always fought with each other and now it’s just changed everything. Everybody gets on a lot better with each other now. There are people that I wouldn’t have talked to before, but now we all get on. It has definitely changed people’s lives here.”

Carla and Danny have created such a successful Grow Wild project that St James has become an exemplar and source of inspiration, visited by other Grow Wild projects looking for top tips! In fact, National Lottery funded, Grow Wild has also been contacted by local people who have visited St James and been inspired to apply for seeds or funding themselves.

23rd August 2018