I am 'Running for R.O.C.' in the Great North-West Half-Marathon, which is taking place in Blackpool, starting on the seafront, on Sunday 19th Feb 2017.

I'm running to raise awareness of the work that the Blackpool Community Action Team is doing (which is a project of Redeeming Our Communities) to support residents with overgrown gardens in Blackpool - it's more than just gardening, it's about transforming and redeeming our communities!

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Here's why I'm doing this:

Sadly, Blackpool has become one of the top 10 most deprived towns in the UK. Amidst the glitz of the seaside attractions, there are rising levels of poverty and many other social concerns.

We want to do something about this and be catalysts for change to help create stronger, kinder and safer communities in Blackpool!

The Community Action Team works to empower residents struggling with overgrown gardens. 

• We teach and train volunteers (as young as 12) in how to operate garden power tools and how to work as a team to transform a garden in just a single 4-hour project day!

• All our projects are free of charge!

• We come alongside every resident in order to understand their needs and work on a plan together for how they will continue their garden maintenance.

• We also work in partnership with local authorities, agencies and community groups from all across the town, so that we can better serve our communities together, but so that we can also link residents to particular groups/services that will be able to help them further than just the garden.

• Since we launched a pilot of this project in 2014, we have already helped more than 50 different households and have worked with over 300 different volunteers!

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What we hope to do with the money raised:

• We want to firmly establish the work of the team in Blackpool, 
• To expand its reach to help more residents who are struggling, 
• To support, train and empower more volunteers and to give them better life chances as a result of being part of our team.

To do this we want to: 

1. Hire a part-time Administrator who can bring valuable behind-the-scenes support for the team,
2. Purchase new gardening equipment so that we can field more teams in the community to serve the town, 
3. And to provide new weekly Community Action Team WORKSHOPS in each of the estates where there is a need, so that volunteers and residents can form community together, be up-skilled, and plan projects to help others in their area together!
   

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The Blackpool Community Action Team is a project lead by Redeeming Our Communities (www.roc.uk.com) in partnership with Blackpool Coastal Housing (www.bch.co.uk).

To learn more about Blackpool Community Action Team, please visit our social media pages:

https://www.facebook.com/BlackpoolCAT/

https://twitter.com/blackpoolCAT 

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