The garden is inspired by the vital role food banks play in bringing people and communities together and helping those on the lowest incomes. It celebrates the power of connection, compassion and collective action, with the hope that when each of us plays our part, we can end hunger together.
The garden provides a space for conversation over a cup of tea, symbolising the warmth, dignity and listening ear people experience when visiting a food bank. Intersecting paths and a shared seating area create opportunities for connection, while a reciprocal frame structure formed of interwoven beams represents the strength that comes from unity. A dynamic water feature provides a tranquil focal point, revealing space for extra seating when the water drains away, creating the opportunity to invite more people in.
Diverse, textural planting with Verbascum, Thalictrum and Iris reflects the beauty of difference and the resilience that grows when people stand together to support each other. Crucially, this isn’t a food garden – because hunger in the UK isn’t a food problem, it’s an income problem. To end the need for food banks, people need to have enough money to live on.
Trussell is an anti-poverty charity working to end the need for food banks in the United Kingdom. It provides practical support to people during their hardest times, working with a community of over 1,400 food banks UK-wide, as well as its partners, volunteers and supporters to end hunger.
Last year, food banks in the Trussell community provided nearly three million parcels for people facing hardship, showing the scale of hunger in the UK.
The garden will be relocated to the Strabane Foodbank, part of the Trussell community in Northern Ireland.