When the Ironbridge Lions club was formed 40 years ago, Jim Groves was one of the founder members and he remained in membership until he sadly died last year. To mark the importance of that relationship in Jim’s life his daughter Mandy kindly nominated the club to receive donations from her dad’s funeral. Jim’s passions included gardening and the natural world and Mandy felt that an ideal memorial to her dad would be a project involving young people and aimed at stimulating their interest in those areas.
The club looked at a number of options and finally settled on a joint project with the Redhill School at Priorslee – a school with which we have had a relationship for some years. Redhill have a nature garden area on the edge of their playground which has become neglected over the years and the school has an ambition to bring it back to its former glory and to integrate it into their lessons programme.
This project seemed ideally suited to provide an appropriate memorial to Jim and the school were very willing to dedicate the garden to his memory and to involve the club in the construction. The garden will be known as “the Grove Garden” and the first stage of the project, which will be completed this year, will include a seat overlooking a pond area with a commemorative plaque to Jim’s memory. Kevin Maddy, the school caretaker has already created the pool area and will lead the remaining work to create the new garden.
The school is committed to involving the children in the creation of the garden and on 14th January President Jim Philbin attended the morning assembly with Lions Colin Thompson and Graham Powell to present a cheque for £600 and to listen to the schools “Ecowarriors” present their design ideas for the garden. Additional funding beyond the Lions cheque will be required to complete the full project and the school will be fundraising for the remainder.
The Picture above shows Jim presenting the cheque to Ecowarrier Zach Clarke and below shows Jim and Graham with Deputy Headmistress Lydia Cartwright and the full Ecowarrier group – Lucas Egerton, Zach Clarke, Harriet McCarney, Chloe Harris, Matty Weichlbauer, muhammed Rehman, Charlotte Wood and Abbie Ogram
Recent Comments