Nature club at Boston school honoured for transforming area of mud and concrete

Members of the Grow with Nature Club. Pictured (from left) Ramona Romanova, eight, Arturas Butnorius, nine, Julia Los, 11, and George Watson, 11.

The Grow with Nature Club at Hawthorn Tree School has won the 2023 Lincolnshire Young Environmentalist Award.

The event aims to recognise and reward young people who have shown outstanding dedication to environmental causes.

The Grow with Nature Club was formed to transform a bare patch at their school, left behind after a nursery re-located, using ideas submitted by fellow pupils.

Part of the wildlife and outdoor growing space.

Judges were particularly impressed with the initiative shown by pupils and their success in involving the wider community. For instance, one member – without telling anyone – successfully applied to a local garden centre for equipment, while another secured such items as plant pots and tools after a weekend of phone calls.

Zoe Rumsby, who on the judging panel, said: “The kids were so enthusiastic and they really knew their stuff. Their site was bare concrete a year-and-a-half ago and now it’s a proper garden. That’s what amazed us.”

Fellow Judge Linda Benson said: “The children have been there from the very start and all the way along the journey, shaping the transformation themselves. They have been making things happen, thinking and acting independently.”

Teacher Nicola Ingamells, who has been helping to run the Grow with Nature Club from the start, said she was ‘really proud’ of the children.

The area as it was before, still with the mobile on site.

“They’ve worked so hard for themselves and for the younger children to come, and this award is inspiration for them to keep going,” she said.

The award is organised by the Rotary Club of Lindum Lincoln and the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and sponsored by FCC Environment.