‘Inspiring’: Ashmount Primary School kids show solidarity by sharing summer harvest with homeless people

Parents and kids collect produce to give to Streets Kitchen at Ashmount Primary School. Picture: Eleanor Mawdesley (Image: Archant)

Green-fingered kids at Ashmount Primary School have been growing rhubarbs, tomatoes, radishes, brussel sprouts, cauliflowers and more at their plot - and they yesterday gave grassroots outreach group Streets Kitchen a cut of their harvest, a first offering in what will be an ongoing relationship.

Streets Kitchen have also been pledged produce from St Aiden's Voluntary Controlled Primary School, in Albany Road, Haringey, and activists this week served up their first batch of home-grown food - cultivated at Friends of Wray Crescent's Yvonne Connolly Garden - on an outreach session in Hackney.

Streets Kitchens coordinator Jon Glackin told the Gazette: "It just shows that Islington has such a beautiful community that comes together for things like this. Those children in the schools will be talking about homelessness and the young people are being part of the solution by helping us. They have their own part to play - it's inspiring."

Michelle Jones, 37, a full-time mother whose boys go to Ashmount, is one of three parents who have championed the school's gardening project.

Children at Ashmount Primary School have been growing their own vegetables. Picture: Eleanor Mawdesley (Image: Archant)

"We came together in December last year and asked to do gardening at school," she told the Gazette.

"It's now grown from our own three kids to 50 children, who otherwise wouldn't have interactions with growing their own food because we live in an urban environment. This is the first summer they have had growing at school, so we thought it would be nice to keep it so children who will not be going on holiday can go and [access the garden space]. I think it's great to share with others less fortunate than ourselves."

Islington's housing chief Cllr Diarmaid Ward said: "Streets Kitchen do some brilliant work in Islington and we're really pleased we're able to work with them on different projects. The Solidarity Shelter in Hornsey Road was, for example, a great success.

"This is yet another example of what can be achieved when the whole community pulls in one direction."

Michelle Jones standing beside a sunflower in Ashmount Primary School's garden. Picture: Eleanor Mawdesley (Image: Archant)