On an early spring day, overlooking the rolling green hills of Keighley, we welcomed local people to Sue Belcher Community Centre to plant more trees, adding to the orchard we’d created with volunteers just a few weeks earlier. This was part of a co-design project that aimed not only to support the centre’s greening efforts, but to bring different generations together through the shared act of tree planting.

Check out the video below to hear people's stories about why these types of projects are important.

Regular volunteers at Sue Belcher Community Centre were joined by volunteers from Keighley Lions Rotary Club, YORGreens CIC, Fruit Works, and One in a Million, a Bradford-based youth charity. After the trees were safely in the ground, we sat down together for a hot, home-cooked meal finished off with fruit smoothies freshly blended on the gifted smoothie bike from Fruit Works!

Our work in Bradford is part of our Trees for Climate Action initiative, bringing people together who wouldn't normally cross paths in their everyday lives through tree related activities. 

There aren't many opportunities in life where people from all generations can get together and work towards a common goal. It's more than just planting trees, it's putting roots down in their community, and creating a greener, healthier space for the next generations to come.

Thank you to everyone who made this happen, and a special thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund for funding this project.