The Eiffage Foundation is supporting the Outil en Main association in Angers to develop workshops that focus On Wednesday 20 January, landscaping students from the Lycée du Fresne school in Angers laid the final stone for a “Cristal” wall at the Outil en Main association’s learning garden, an event attended by local officials and project partners, including Eiffage and the Eiffage Foundation. During the event, visitors were able to explore the association's learning garden and workshops.

“Cristal” walls, named after Antoine Cristal (1837-1931), the astute winegrower at the origin of the emblematic “clos des Murs” and “clos Cristal” techniques, are walls that are pierced to let vines pass through to enable them to benefit from heat stored in the wall itself. The foot of the vine is planted on the north side to take advantage of a cooler exposure, and the head grows on the south side to benefit from the sun. This technique is characteristic of Saumur wines.
The Outil En Main association works to introduce young people from the age of 9 to manual trades. Supervised by volunteer professionals, students work with proper tools in real workshops. In Angers, 80 people volunteer to work with 70 children from the age of 9 in some 25 professional workshops. The association also offers internships for young people in difficulty, in partnership with associations and secondary schools. 

The Eiffage Foundation is providing financial support for the development of an 800 square metre garden to provide new workshops for market gardening, arboriculture, floral art, and vine-growing. Around 50 landscape construction and horticulture students from the Lycée du Fresne school have been helping to landscape the garden. Produce from the garden will be used to provide food for the other existing workshops.

The project’s sponsor, Raphaël Lamoitte, operations manager at Eiffage Construction in Maine-et-Loire, volunteers at the association. 

You can submit your project to the Eiffage Foundation online.
We advise that you read the selection criteria carefully and then contact the Eiffage Foundation to check if your project is eligible: Tel. 01 71 59 11 18.