Dating back to the 1950’s the Tidy Towns National Competition has brought communities together with the goal of making the place they live in a pleasant one. Each town that takes part puts huge effort in throughout the year, keeping their town clean and ensuring biodiversity via conservation and little pockets of nature wherever possible. Good for bees, wildlife, and humans alike.
Yesterday the winners of the Tidy Towns Competition were announced. Congratulations to Ennis who won Tidiest Town 👏 My town won a Gold medal – congratulations Leixlip! We bought our forever home here in 2019 and the work of the local TidyTowns was definitely a contributing factor to moving here. The town is kept so clean, is filled with flowers and appreciates it’s heritage buildings. We were certainly appreciative of having such lovely places to walk in our 2k-5k during lockdown too.
The people who take part in TidyTowns across Ireland are volunteers who give their time for free. I wanted to give back or help out in some way so I popped along to a Leixlip Tidy Town Association (LTTA) meet-up. I joined them in some weeding and when Chairperson Berni told me they needed a new website… Eureka! I knew then how I could contribute.
They had the bare bones of a website but it had been idle for a few months with no content, a bit of a chaotic cpanel, and a back-end that wasn’t user-friendly. I rebuilt the site, integrating the colours of their logo, and content was provided from photos and copy from their facebook page. It was a quick project but one which I intend to improve and build on when I can volunteer my time to it. Unfortunately for now there are PDFs etc. on the site which are bulk heavy, the committee have also agreed to switch the site to green hosting in the coming year.
I would encourage anyone who has a TidyTowns initiative where they live to volunteer – even if you don’t have green fingers you might lend a hand in another way. Perhaps you could offer admin services, offer to do their social media, or host an event? They need all hands on deck!
This morning I gatecrashed with my camera while some volunteers were planting bulbs and bedding flowers in various large planters around the town (see pics below). The camaraderie between everyone is a joy to behold and it is really the heart of the whole initiative.
Today is World Kindness Day. Kindness begins at home.
Kindly,
JR
