We had a fantastic ‘Big Burnage Animal Parade’, a really successful event that brought the whole community together – well over 200 people attended including the Lord Mayor, local councillors and MP Jeff Smith. The project involved children from Acacias Primary School, St Bernard’s Primary School, Green End Primary School and local toddlers from the library’s story time group.
The project was produced by ‘Friends of Burnage Library’, a charity which has taken over the running of Burnage Library, working in partnership with Southway Housing and Manchester City Council. This was an event for our community, by our community, with additional artistic expertise from carnival organisation Global Grooves.
Friends of Burnage Library were grateful to the Big Lottery Fund for a ‘Celebrate’ grant to support the project.
As the sun went down on an unusually sunny spring Friday, Burnage families gathered at St. Margaret’s Church car park to the sound of drums for the Big Burnage Animal Parade.
Excitement mounted as two giant illuminated figures of an eagle and a stag arrived, glowing in the twilight. Organised by Burnage Library with Lottery funding, carnival arts group Global Grooves worked with children from Acacias, St. Bernard’s and Green End schools to build carnival creatures and decorate masks and headdresses for the parade.
Processing along Burnage Lane, the parade arrived at Burnage Academy – where illuminated elephants and flowers provided a magical setting for the carnival dancers and musicians who got everybody dancing under the stars.
It was great to see so many people of all ages from the community coming together for such a fun and creative event. Everyone has helped us to make it a very special night – the churches, local primary schools and Academy , the Community Centre and the all the Library volunteers – Burnage has a good heart, and that’s really something we should celebrate.
