April 2018

Taking Root had fantastic fun on Friday 27th April 2018 for Pay it Forward day as part of the Well Sefton partnership! Dedicated to creating a brighter Bootle, Well Sefton partners delivered a raft of activities to embrace the power of giving and to encourage the people of Bootle to spread the love among the community. Pay It Forward Day is a worldwide movement that promotes random acts of kindness with the idea that those who experience an act of kindness pass it on to others.

Well Sefton is a collaborative programme working to improve the health and wellbeing of the people living and working in Bootle by creating a vibrant and connected community, living in a more pleasant environment. The collaboration is made up of Regenerus, Safe Regeneration, Living Well Sefton (Sefton CVS) and YKids. Volunteers from YKids were at Bootle Market where they handed out vouchers for a free drink at the North Perk cafe, positivity pouches and offered free face painting.

Living Well Sefton, working with the Orrell Trust, Venus and the May Logan Centre, facilitated a whole range of activities to promote random acts of kindness, including making your own ‘message in a bottle’ so that people could pledge their random act of kindness and get a small decorative bottle to write a name tag of the person they plan to do a deed for. Children from Springwell Park School also taught older people at the Orrell Trust to play Bocca. SAFE Regeneration used Pay it Forward Day to build on its ‘Green Dream’ environmental work. The focus was on creating more habitats for local wildlife by distributing wildflower seeds to local community groups.

Groups of community gardeners from the Regenerus Taking Root in Bootle project created wooden planters to gift to passers-by and to residents around the local neighbourhood to brighten up the area. Our planters were a great example of our Pay it Forward journey, designed and made by the joinery team at Hugh Baird College, sprayed, lined and planted up by our volunteers, with plants contributed by St Leonard’s YCC and local business Tony Almond.

Not put off by the rain, Taking Root gifted 27 planters, with more to follow as our other community garden groups meet up in the days to come. Thanks to our community gardeners in South Park, North Park and Marian Way for getting involved and paying it forward! Matt Ashton, Well Sefton Lead and Director of Public Health for Sefton and Knowsley, said: “Pay it Forward Day is an opportunity for the Bootle community to truly come together and make acts of kindness something that happens throughout the year.

The Well Sefton collaboration made a whole lot of exciting activities happen this year to engage the community and encourage the people of Bootle to pay it forward.”