Mercy Girl Wins £150 for School!

Primary 6 girls have been involved in a very exciting gardening project this month. Artist & garden designer Dawn Aston and Siobhan McAlister from Belfast Food Network came to talk to us about the advantages of growing our own food and to ask us to take part in a garden design competition. 

Armed with measuring tapes and ipads, everyone headed outside to look at our established garden to see how we could develop it to include an area for fruit, vegetables and herbs.

Dawn showed us many of her own designs and gave us tips on how to represent buildings, flowers, shrubs and trees on a plan. After that it was up to each girl to plan, sketch, colour and label her design. All the finished work was taken to be displayed in the Urban Soul cafe on May Street. Parents, pupils and the general puplic were invited to view the work from over 200 pupils from seven schools in the Belfast area. Kerri Melville from Belfast Food Network had lots of exciting activities organised for everyone from planting seeds to making plant pots out of old newspapers.

All the girls' work looked fantastic  but of course the icing on the cake was that the first prize was awarded to our own artist/designer, Amelka!! The judges particularly liked the attention to detail in her plan and the fact that it was a design that could be worked practically into our school garden.

The amazing prize is £150 to help us extend our garden to grow more food in school. Organisers are hoping to have a prize giving ceremony in April. 

Well done, girls! We are very proud of you!