Report from Anna Louise Shepherd:
First Portadown Creation Carers celebrated their first year as a group in March 2024, with a Fashion swop evening looking at the impact of textile waste in landfill. We aimed at organising an event that would appeal to a wide audience and raise awareness of the environmental impact of fast fashion. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and re-imagine were the buzz words for the evening, which we set in the wider context of the. Christian’s call to stewardship and care of scare resources.
Along with a vast array of pre-loved fashion items for people to take, there was an exhibition of much skilled and artistic reuse of fabrics from fashion to furnishings. Over 200 people attended, all clothes left were taken by a charity shop.
We continue to collect litter regularly in the streets we have adopted adjoining our buildings, and have now had planters made and filled to brighten up the entrances to church and the hall.
Over the year we have fostered links with the ABC council wildlife information officers and have received help to sow a small wildflower meadow, put up bird boxes in the park area included in our sponsored street, and also took part in the Big Garden Bird Watch earlier in the year.
With the youth organisations we have encouraged the big plastic count and made eco- bricks from soft plastic and crisp packet hearts to highlight the pollution of the River Bann which runs beside us.
We have applied to plant and maintain a busy roundabout which is located on one of our sponsored streets and hope to have a further litter pick involving both the river in canoes and on the banks, in conjunction with the local Upper Bann clean up organisation. We are hoping to focus on saving and reusing water as our theme for this year and hoping to get water butts installed on the premises.