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Sensory Garden & Polytunnel at St Josephs NS

After securing €10,000 in AXA Parks funding, our TidyTowns Volunteers spent over 200 voluntary hours completing the design, project management and build of a new Sensory Garden and Polytunnel for our local National School (St. Josephs NS Milltownpass)

In late 2022, with funding of €10,000 secured by Milltownpass Tidy Towns from AXA Parks we approached our local national school - St Joseph’s - with the idea to use the funding to do a sensory garden and polytunnel for the school children. The school got on board immediately. They told us it was something that they had hoped to do for years but didn’t have the funding for. So the stars were aligning and the timing was perfect!


We set about ordering the polytunnel and gathering requirements for the sensory garden from the school. They wanted something low maintenance and durable, with plenty of colour, along with sound and movement elements to cater for the unique needs of the autistic centre within the school. It also needed to be usable even after heavy rain so that classes could be held outside. With that criteria, we drafted a proposal for the design of the space and the materials to be used, and once the school signed off on our design, we got to work.


Work began in February 2023 and more than 200 working hours by 10 Tidy Towns volunteers were invested in painting, cleaning, manually moving soil, building the sensory and play equipment, and laying the grass. We had to lay the artificial grass ourselves as we didn’t have enough in the budget to pay a professional company to do it. That was a huge learning curve but thankfully our talented volunteer and CE worker, Christy Wright was able to figure it out and guide the team in completing the work.


We’re immensely grateful to two local businesses without whose support we wouldn’t have been able to complete the project – firstly, Peter Loftus and Sam Jefferys from Milltown Passive Builds, who supported the team through the entire project, did the ground work at a reduced price, and facilitated keener supplier rates through the business. Also, Jimmy Flood from Abbey Gate Craft, who designed the steel reinforced play bridge and made it at a reduced price too. Even the school children got involved by holding a successful cake sale in April 2023 to raise funds for additional equipment for the sensory garden.


On Friday May 5th 2023 our Tidy Towns team gathered with staff and pupils and our Youth Officer Wayne Wright - who himself had spent countless hours working on the project - cut the ribbon to officially open the new sensory garden and polytunnel. The project a big undertaking for our group, much bigger than we had anticipated, and we’re proud of the commitment and dedication of all of our volunteers, whose hard work has resulted in these amenities finally becoming a reality for the children.


The AXA Parks Fund is an initiative to support sustainable, community-led projects creating or improving green spaces in their localities.


Learn more about AXA Parks at axa.ie/about/axa-parks


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Milltownpass,

Co. Westmeath

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© 2023 by Milltownpass Tidy Towns.  Sponsored by the Rise Community Fund.

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