Donations and Funding

In the last few weeks we have received some unexpected donations and secured funding to set up a pilot project at our site in Stevenage.

We received cheques from Stevenage Rotary and a local metal detectorist group called 3CCDG.  Both organisations invited us to meet with them and made a presentation.  It was exciting to be talking about The Red Shed Project to new people and receive such a warm welcome and positive feedback to what we are doing.  We were able to tell the groups that their donations would go towards the final stages of building our dementia garden, particularly the cost of making the surface – which is currently rough grass – suitable for use with wheelchairs and those with difficulties walking.  This part of the garden construction is the ‘game changer’ and once it is in place our garden can be utilised in full and we can host other organisations for garden workshops as well as increase the numbers in our own groups.

Our Garden Club has also launched, funded through Hertfordshire Community Foundation.  The funding enables us to run the Garden Club on a weekly basis through the year until December.  The Club will grow and maintain the plants in our garden and provide a supply of materials for our offsite workshops as well as work on some projects with the children at St Vincents Primary School.  We are planning some events to include the families of Garden Club members and have already started growing some salad and edible flowers to use when we cater for these events.

So there is going to be lots of exciting things to blog about soon and in the meantime a very big thank you to Stevenage Rotary, 3CCDG and HCF!