Chivas Brothers staff help fix up Neilston charity gardens

The initiative was organised by Matt Drennan, a volunteer trustee director with Neilston Development Trust (NDT) and shift manager at the whisky company’s Strathclyde distillery.

The team take a well-earned break (Image: Supplied)

Despite some challenging weather, including rain, hail and snow, the work colleagues got stuck in and under the direction of NDT garden coordinator Douglas Mather got the site back into tip top shape.

The large beds before (Image: Supplied)

Large beds during (Image: Supplied)

The large beds after (Image: Supplied)

Neilston resident Matt told the Barrhead News: “I had an initiative to get local pensioners to teach horticulture skills to another local charity Include Me 2 Club (IM2C) who provide services for people with additional support needs.

“Due to covid the NDT charity gardens were in a wee state of disrepair and in need of some hard focus to get the area back into a working condition ready for the production and planting of herbs, fruit and vegetables in conjunction with the IM2C members.

“As always with these things you have a noble idea, but one coupled with a long list of difficulties to overcome to realise your aims, so back in Glasgow at my work in the Chivas Brothers Distillery I perused my options and decided to put out a SOS call to ask for Chivas volunteers to help these two charities.”

Matt was overjoyed by the response he then received from the C shift distillery team members, who all volunteered to come up to Neilston on a cold and wet day on Friday, March 22 to help him get this charitable initiative started.

“On behalf of the villagers of Neilston and the two charities involved, I would like to congratulate Chivas Brothers for allowing their employees to volunteer time helping get our community gardens reworked,” added Matt.

“To the members of C shift, we all salute your hard work, professionalism, community outreach and charitable spirit.”