Rich Pickings!

Abundance UK wins The Observer Ethical Awards

A local West Ealing community project which makes use of seasonal fruit crops for the benefit of the community has won a top prize.

On the evening of June 10th at a star-studded ceremony at the V&A in London, presented by Colin Firth and Lucy Siegle (Observers Ethical Living Correspondent) the winners of this years Observer Ethical Awards were announced.

Over 8000 entries were received this year representing the enormous variety of solutions and ideas dealing with environmental and social justice in the UK.

West Ealing Neighbours Abundance Project is part of an Abundance UK network which was shortlisted, and won, the Grassroots Projects category.

Each year hundreds of fruit trees go unpicked either because people don't notice them, may not be physically able to harvest them or there are just too many fruits at one time. Abundance is a team of mostly volunteers who have helped harvest city fruit and redistributed the surplus to the community on a non-profit basis.

Diane Gill, WEN's Abundance project manager says ‘'I am so thrilled that WEN Abundance is part of the Abundance UK network that has won this years award - it makes all our efforts worthwhile. And whilst the London groups are less established than Sheffield and Manchester we have take inspiration from them to start our own groups and hope to be as successful as them over the next few years. 2010 is a big year for us at WEN Abundance having just received funding via Ealing Councils Ward Forum budgets for a variety of activities we have planned. If anyone wants to be a volunteer to help pick fruit, make jams and chutneys, or with general publicity please contact me at WestEalingNeighbours@gmail.com''

May 17, 2010