Successful Community Grant cause
Growing Roots
Growing Roots provides opportunities for people with mental health issues to grow flowers, fruit and vegetables on their own plot on an allotment within Highfield Park in St Albans.
They are a small charitable project, operating from late March to mid-October each year. Their gardeners come for at least an hour each week, and carry out sowing of seeds, planting out and harvesting with support from volunteers.
Two years ago they lost their shed and greenhouse in an arson attack. They received funds to replace them and took the opportunity to re-jig the layout at the bottom of the allotment to make a seating area.
Visit their website to find out more about their work.
Their grant application
When applying for a Community Grant, Growing Roots told us they support local people with mental health issues who are referred to them by professionals. The number of participants has steadily risen since the pandemic and they have space for only one more person, a position they have never reached before. If they could improve their seating area they would be better equipped to allow everyone to sit down comfortably together, they could host their group events such as their lunch at the end of the growing season more easily, and the changes would make it a more accommodating and inviting area to sit in for the participants when they just want to have a chat.
What they spent their grant on
Carol Prowse, Trustee and Coordinator from Growing Roots shared how they spent their £250 grant.
“Our project provides opportunities for gardening on a traditional full-length allotment. Sometimes we have wanted to hold gatherings on the allotment and it has usually proved difficult to seat everyone for the occasional lunch or end of year event. We had also wanted to increase the amount of shade from trellis panels, this proved to be very timely considering the amount of strong sunshine we have had this spring and summer. Early in April we realised that our numbers of clients were growing and we reached our maximum number of participants which is nine clients, a new volunteer and two coordinators.
We had a special day planned for late in July when the High Sheriff of Hertfordshire was going to visit, and we felt that it would be a good idea to finish the improvements to the seating area on our allotment so that we could all sit down comfortably together during his visit.
With the help of this grant we have managed to do this, by installing an extra trellis panel and post, and a sail, and by purchasing foldaway chairs which can be used again and again. We made savings by avoiding a delivery charge for the chairs and by using some Post Concrete we had left over from some earlier work. We had a small amount of the grant left over and we put this towards the purchase of twelve extra plumbing pipes which we use in the ground to support netting. The increase in clients led to the need for lots of extras suddenly, including netting, canes and pipes to support the netting.
All of the participants have benefitted from these improvements every time they have visited.”
High Sherrif Visit
Our Community Grants
We are delighted to be able to award Growing Roots with a £250 Community Grant which has allowed them to make positive changes to their allotment and the support they can offer their community.
Each quarter, we offer 8 x £250 Community Grants to UK-based good causes. If you are a good cause who would like to apply for one of these unrestricted grants, visit our Community Grants page for more information.
About the author
Luisa Gatward
Our Head of Operations, Luisa is responsible for the smooth running of all operations including marketing and partner relationships. Having started working for TheGivingMachine in 2010, she has seen our Charity grow and develop into what we have today.