Last year we piloted a community volunteering program at our market garden, and now we have our Social Value Report 2020 showing what we did. You can read the report by clicking on the download button.
We exist to create opportunities for food sovereignty, climate friendly farming and wellbeing. Last year, we demonstated this with:
-684 volunteer hours were undertaken across 9 months involving 28 diverse people.
-40 sessions were run on food growing.
-This equates to a combined value of £15,960.00 through volunteering
-114 interactions between the organic growing community and local people took place.
Volunteer sessions increased the confidence and independence of community members, as people developed new social circles, increased activity outdoors and enabled connections with nature.
Volunteer benefits included:
100% of people involved reported health and wellbeing benefits
100% of those interviewed built skills, knowledge and experience in food growing
45% were total beginners to growing upon starting the programme
We also traded at 77 local markets, and delivered over 1100 veg boxes to local people.
We want to build on this for 2020, and we want you to get involved. In January, we changed our company structure to a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, which reflects our values and means we are more accountable. If you would be interested in joining the volunteer sessions, please send me your email address. If you’d be interested in a veg box, also send your email. And if you’d like to hear what we are doing next year, send your email to be added to our main mailing list. Click here to email us.
We signed our contract with Tim and Janet from Abbey Leys organic farm last Tuesday, which felt very exciting. So, I have been moving forward with the next stages of the site build and the associated admin.
we can be more professional with the market stall (and hopefully more profitable with it). We built a large shed and have fitted it with two large commercial fridges.