Pumkin Party At Grow Coventry CIC

🎃 Pumpkin Party at Earlsdon Allotments

Celebrating Community, Growing Together

On Friday 10th October, the Citizen Engagement Team were honoured to attend the Pumpkin Party hosted by one of our awarded projects from Round 2 of the 2024 Citizen Local Fund. The event marked the opening of a brand-new hut at the heart of the Earlsdon Allotments Community Plot, run by Grow Coventry CIC.

We were warmly welcomed by the community and had the chance to taste pumpkins grown by local children — a fantastic way to celebrate the harvest and the next generation learning about food, growing, and caring for the environment. The atmosphere was full of joy, connection, and delicious food, showing just how powerful community-led projects can be.

Here is their story............

🌿 Growing Together: How Our Community Allotment Is Making a Big Difference

About the Project

Over the past 18 months, our community allotment has become a lively and welcoming space. Families, local growers, the nearby primary school, and charities all come together here to learn about growing food, enjoy nature, and connect with others.

We noticed a few challenges: we didn’t have a covered space for events during bad weather, and we needed a proper area for growers to leave donated food for the local food bank.

So, we set out to improve the site—making it more useful all year round and helping more people in our community.

Community Involvement

Local people have played a big part in this project. Materials were sourced locally, and skilled carpenters helped build the covered areas. The allotment committee and food bank worked with us to plan how donated food would be collected and delivered.

Volunteers from the allotment and nearby neighbourhoods have helped maintain the site and run events. Families from Earlsdon and children from the local school have joined in with workshops and working groups.

🌱 What’s Changed?

We’ve seen some lovely changes. A nearby plot with trees and a polytunnel became available, and we’ve now added it to our community space. The school also has a new covered area for outdoor learning and events.

Older allotment growers have enjoyed teaching children how to grow plants, and the children love learning from them. It’s helped build friendships across generations.

We’ve held events like a summer BBQ and a Pumpkin Party, even when the weather wasn’t great. We’ve also set up a regular food bank drop-off rota and grown more crops thanks to the covered areas.

Success Stories

One of our proudest moments was winning first prize for French beans at the local community show—grown by the school children! We also won a national prize for three miniature pumpkins in the Kids category. It was a brilliant surprise and a great boost for everyone involved.

Looking Ahead

We’re planning to do even more. We want to equip a community kitchen at the local primary school so we can run cooking workshops. This will help people learn how to use fresh produce in healthy meals.

We also want to run more workshops on the allotment, like tree pruning, wreath making, and food preserving. We’re working with partners to reach families who speak English as a second language and may not know what grows well in Coventry or how to access green spaces.

Funding & Support

The Citizen Local Fund helped us build the food bank drop-off point and create covered spaces for events and workshops. We’ve already celebrated with a Pumpkin Party, where we enjoyed soup made from pumpkins grown by the children—right on the land where they were planted!

Managing the funding was straightforward, and we’d encourage others to apply. Our tip? Get your community involved from the start. Everyone has something to offer, and together you can achieve something amazing.