Youth-led Community Project
One of our youth volunteers applied and gained a microgrant from London Youth in Summer 2020 to plan, budget, promote, deliver and evaluate a community gardening project. He has shown real initiative and thought in setting up this project on his own, with guidance when needed from our Youth Manager.
Wild Seed Giveaway
In September our volunteer ran a session where he gave out 25 free seed kits he had made up to local people. He carefully researched the seed varieties and gave advice to those who collected the kits. His project has seen a total of 8,326 wildflower seeds given out to plant in the local area to help pollinators!
Farm Planting Session
Later in September our volunteer led a second event this time on the Farm. He delivered a relaxed gardening session that he designed to “slow down the pace of your day and bring about a calm to boost your wellbeing”. Participants planted pollinator friendly plants around the Farm including Prunella vulgaris, Achillea millefolium, Primula vulgaris, Galium verum and Agastache Blackadder
The feedback received from the survey was incredibly positive and well-received, so I’d like to think that I had a powerful positive impact on the mental wellbeing of the members of the public involved in gardening
Running projects takes a lot more planning and coordination that I had imagined, as well as being a lot more time consuming than I had initially thought, however it’s extremely gratifying to reap the mental benefits once your project is a success.
I’ve had such a unique and unobtainable experience that has played a core role in developing many of my personal skills that I’ll need to utilise for the rest of my life!”
