A Dumfries based group has been awarded a grant from Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership’s Community Pride Fund.

Kaleidescope, a group supporting people with mental health issues, picked up £1,420 from DGHP’s Nithsdale District Management Committee to help involve their service users in their garden project.

They are using the money to enhance their garden and replace worn out garden furniture. They also intend starting a wormery, to fertilise the soil and also to help the fishing group.

DGHP’s Nithsdale DMC member, Liz McCulloch, said: "The project is fantastic, it is so good to see so many people involved in making a difference to their surroundings, I am very impressed by the work that these volunteers have taken part in."

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Kaleidoscope Project Manager, Emma Scott, said: "Thanks to the generous award from DGHP’s Community Pride Fund we have been able to develop our garden and this has made an extremely positive contribution to the work of the group. This is either by them being directly involved in the planting, enjoying the produce or just having a seat in the therapeutic garden environment.

"Everyone has been involved and it has been a great benefit to every one of our 188 service users."

Stuart Cameron, one of the service users, said: "I am involved with a number of the groups’ activities and this helps me maintain myself in the community.

"The staff and service users have generated a real sense of wellbeing and it really feels like we are a community within the community. The produce that we grow in the gardens is used every day to make soups and is eaten by everyone at the centre."

The Community Pride Fund was first established to encourage tenants and others to work together to improve the local communities around Dumfries and Galloway.

(GK)