Earlier this month, we launched our new strategy. This will guide our grant making from now until 2030. We’ve heard what’s affecting communities across the UK. Now we’re focusing our funding, learning and efforts on four community-led missions.

We will support communities to: 

• come together
• be environmentally sustainable
• help children and young people thrive
• enable people to live healthier lives

We spoke to Karen Healy, Environmental Officer at Creggan Country Park, who shared why a focus on the environment is so important for communities.

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I believe that nature has the answer to many of our problems.

In these challenging times people of all ages and backgrounds are struggling with food poverty, loneliness, poor mental health, rising energy bills. Plus environmental issues such as regular flooding are also causing problems in communities. 

Being in nature and looking after our environment can help communities in lots of different ways.

Giving communities the skills and opportunity to grow food can help address food poverty. Community-led nature walks and creating more green spaces reduces loneliness and poor mental health. Floods are becoming more common as we deal with our changing climate. There are many natural solutions to help protect communities. Creating wetlands, changing mowing habits, good habitat management and planting the right trees in the right place are the answer. 

All of this highlights the importance of our connection to nature.

Over the past 20 years, The National Lottery Community Fund has been a constant at Creggan Country Park as we tackle climate action and respond to social problems in our community.

Through our The National Lottery Community Fund supported projects, we’ve seen the huge benefits of being outdoors.

We’ve provided outdoor places for people to spend time in nature with willow domes & picnic areas at the park. These offer great spaces for outdoor learning, events and volunteering. People love spending time in the fresh air, focusing on wildlife and learning. It has reduced stress and improved their wellbeing.

We’ve used the environment as a tool to reduce isolation and loneliness in older people. By connecting elderly care home residents with our volunteers, we offered nature therapy, planting, art and biodiversity-themed activities. This built friendships, skills and boosted mental health in both residents and volunteers.

We were even able to involve residents with limited mobility, using window bird feeders and mobile planting kits. Our volunteers also planted trees, sowed wildflower seeds and installed bird boxes in care home gardens. This meant residents could still get close to nature after the project ended.

Our most recent project ‘Creggan Connected’ helped us set up a community fridge. The fridge brings the community together and offers surplus food to families in need. But it’s also making an impact on our local environment.

Food waste can produce a lot of greenhouse gas. So by reducing food waste, the community fridge is helping tackle climate change. In 12 months, our community fridge alone has saved 5.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide and distributed 1.6 tonnes of surplus food (4021 meals).

Through our funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, we’ve been able to respond to local needs. We can address social and environmental issues, making a big difference to people’s lives and to the environment around them.

Now, community groups like ours are in a unique position to share all of this knowledge. We can demonstrate these solutions in action and get more communities involved.

By focussing on supporting communities to be environmentally sustainable, The National Lottery Community Fund is committing to what we’ve seen over the past 20 years at Creggan Country Park – to take care of nature we also take care of ourselves.