On 3 December 2025, staff and students from the Department of Geography in Maynooth University published a beautiful new Eye on the World blog about Our Shared Plate’s work with Newbridge Family Resource Centre (NFRC). The piece, “Co-Creating Sustainable Futures: Our Shared Plate and the Newbridge Family Resource Centre Community Garden”, showcases how neighbours, researchers and practitioners can come together to grow food, community and climate action side by side.

👉 Read the full Maynooth Geography blog here:

This blog is the second in a series written by the MA Spatial Justice community geography research partnership with Our Shared Plate – a climate justice and food security initiative of Neighbourhood Network. The series follows how our pilot project worked with nine communities across Kildare, Laois and Longford to create shared food-growing spaces.

A changing policy landscape for community gardens

The Maynooth team situate the Newbridge garden within an important moment for Ireland. When President Michael D. Higgins signed the Planning and Development Act 2024 into law, local authorities were given a new responsibility: to support the creation and maintenance of both allotments and community gardens as part of a Sustainable Places and Communities strategy.

The blog explores why this matters. Community gardens are described as vital parts of our green infrastructure—supporting:

• climate resilience
• local food systems and shorter supply chains
• environmental education
• social connection, health and well-being

Our Shared Plate (OSP) is highlighted as one example of how these policies can come alive on the ground, in real places with real people.

Our Shared Plate as “community infrastructure”

Since 2024, Our Shared Plate has been working as a kind of community infrastructure or “connector” between:

• local authorities
• Maynooth University Geography researchers
• community groups and family resource centres
• local residents and volunteers

Through a mix of workshops and hands-on sessions, OSP supports communities to co-design and co-create their own shared food spaces: transforming underused green areas into gardens, planting edible hedges and orchards, setting up polytunnels and raised beds, and even planning community ovens and shared meals.

Newbridge Family Resource Centre was one of nine communities in the OSP pilot phase, funded through the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (via Pobal). The Maynooth blog describes how much was achieved together in just nine months.

The Newbridge Family Resource Centre community garden

Located in Dara Park and surrounded by council housing estates, Newbridge Family Resource Centre has been a hub for local families since 1984. Its values—community-led, welcoming, non-judgemental and empathetic—shine through in the new garden.

The blog offers a vivid tour of the space:

• entering from the back door of the centre into a bright, open garden
• a polytunnel overflowing with tomatoes and cucumbers, alongside a lemon tree, grapevine and fig tree
• raised beds with seasonal veg: cabbages, kale, carrots, broad beans climbing willow arches made in community workshops
• herb beds, composting systems and rainwater harvesting
• a newly planted edible hedge of native berries and a young orchard of apple and pear trees
• an area left wild for birds, pollinators and beneficial insects

Benches and chairs around the garden emphasise that this is not just a production space – it’s a social and healing space where people can rest, chat and connect.

Newbridge Family Resource Centre Community Garden Polytunnel with Our Shared Plate and NFRC staff, and the ‘Spatial Justice and Public Engagement’ MA class at Maynooth Geography, 17 October 2025. Photo courtesy of Our Shared Plate.

Learning together: workshops, mapping and creativity

The Maynooth Geography blog highlights the many strands of collaboration that shaped the garden:

• “Pixels and Petals” garden design sessions with adult learners and horticulturist Lucy Bell
• soil testing and mapping workshops
• edible hedge and forest planting
• composting, water harvesting and willow weaving sessions
• a pop-up Seed Library with Kildare County Council
• community food mapping activities with the Maynooth research team
• visits and conversations with OSP’s Kildare artist-in-residence, Jennie Moran, whose work “Food is never just food” grew out of these encounters

On 17 October 2025, the MA Spatial Justice and Public Engagement class visited the garden. Their reflections and observations form the heart of the Maynooth blog – from learning how to plant winter garlic to understanding how the garden supports people with different physical abilities.

Volunteers and “diverse economies”

A central theme of the blog is the role of volunteers in making community gardens possible. Drawing on ideas of “diverse economies”, the authors point out that unpaid work can be undervalued in traditional labour markets – yet it is absolutely essential to projects like Our Shared Plate and NFRC.

They share the story of Paul, a lifelong gardener and NFRC volunteer, who guided students through the garden, explained the composting systems and raised beds, and led a patient, hands-on garlic planting workshop. His pride in the garden, and his care for others learning to grow, captures the spirit of the project.

The blog calls for continued recognition and support for volunteers, alongside the need for ongoing funding for paid roles that can coordinate and sustain these community spaces.

What’s next for Our Shared Plate?

The Maynooth blog also looks ahead to the future of Our Shared Plate:

• Phase 2 will begin in 2026, supported by the Department of Agriculture to help shorten food supply chains in new communities across the midlands and north.
• Additional funding will extend OSP’s work in Athy on a youth-led climate justice project, with philanthropic support enabling future work in Wicklow.
• Our Shared Plate plans to reach 250 communities by 2030, supporting neighbourhoods to grow, cook and share food as part of local climate action.
• The OSP Community Workbook and Pilot Phase Progress Report will be made publicly available as resources for any community interested in starting their own shared garden.

Read the full story

We’re incredibly proud to see Our Shared Plate and Newbridge Family Resource Centre featured in this thoughtful piece of publicly-engaged research and storytelling.

📖 Read the full blog on Maynooth Geography’s Eye on the World:
“Co-Creating Sustainable Futures: Our Shared Plate and the Newbridge Family Resource Centre Community Garden”

If your community has access to a green space and would like to explore creating a shared garden or food-growing space as part of Our Shared Plate, we’d love to hear from you. Email [email protected]🌿