Gardens

The Caritas St Joseph’s Gardening Service supports adults with intellectual disabilities to develop their skills and access meaningful employment. In response to the disproportionately high rates of unemployment among people with disabilities, the service operates as a training-based work placement, where students can undertake commercial gardening work for parishes and private clients across London.

At The Vine Church Sheffield we are working to transform our community garden into a thriving space where people can rest, reflect, connect and share. We will be undertaking major development work such as building beds and creating a seating area, helping the garden to feel welcoming and accessible for all. This will create new opportunities for local people to gather, share skills, and grow produce, improving the environment for everyone. By planting native perennials, seasonal edibles and building bug hotels, we’ll also enable local wildlife to thrive.

Wooler URC is building a planned garden that would consist of a paved or bricked surface with a labyrinth design, three benches and a pergola for seating in wet weather, four planters with flowers and herbs, and an information board.

We hope to create a safe and welcoming outdoor space for spiritual guidance, healing, meditation, connection, and community. We want to encourage new people to come and ‘try it out’ which will lead to all sorts of new engagement with the church, the local community and its members. This interaction and conversations that might happen in the labyrinth garden would provide all sorts of exciting opportunities for church growth, community engagement and discipleship.

Creativity Counts is a seven-week course in which members take part in a variety of creative activities to develop their sense of self. The activities are multi-sensory interactions, to encourage confidence and develop healthy habits.

Kidron Project’s mission is to equip individuals in Inverclyde with practical and emotional support that values the whole person. By ‘whole person’, we refer to the belief that people are body, mind and spirit, and that to improve a person’s wellbeing in one area of life, attention must be paid to improving wellbeing in every area of life.

Time to Grow
Since 1845, the Elizabeth Fry Charity has been offering accommodation and support to vulnerable women. Today, the Charity runs Elizabeth Fry House, a twenty-four bed Ministry of Justice Approved Premises for women.

Elizabeth Fry House offers a balance of support and monitoring to help women transform chaotic situations and address issues that may prevent them from leaving the criminal justice system and leading safe, healthy, independent lives. The Time to Grow Therapeutic Gardening Project was launched in early 2023.

Hope Garden is a weekly therapeutic garden group in Sparkbrook ,Birmingham  open to men and women, many of whom are refugees. ,We often represent up to 15 different ethnicities in one session ,working and learning together to improve mental and physical wellbeing. We learn new skills eg composting and use of bokashi recently and grow and harvest our own fruit and vegetables . We have recently embarked on an ambitious wall art depicting our local surroundings.

ACCEPT is a small charity whose vision is improved mental health for those experiencing difficulties and good mental health for the wider population, whose activities mostly take place at a community wellbeing garden in Barwell, Leicestershire.

Westhill’s kind provision includes the support of a weekly wellbeing gardening group and the production of permanent outdoor sculptures, alongside the loan of Westhill’s sculptures, to assist in working through the grieving process, as part of the Bereavement Support Project.

Shieldfield Art Works is an arts organisation based in Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne. SAW believes art and creativity are integral parts of human life, and with art’s unique ability to articulate, question and enquire, we can enact positive change in our communities and the world.

As a project of the Methodist Church, we are built upon Christian foundations of seeking truth, challenging injustice, social activism and operating for the common good. Our broad programme includes developing high quality art exhibitions, events, workshops, conferences, gardening and publications. Anyone, of any faith or none, is welcome to participate in our programme. (Photo credit: Adam Dixon)

The Hildegard Project

The Hildegard Project, builds on the work of the community, facing a rapidly changing world. We find ourselves in our 30th Anniversary Year and continue our dedication to the healing ministry.  Holy Rood House supports people of all ages in their physical, mental and spiritual health through recognising the interface between the gardens, arts, spirituality and justice, which get to the heart of this project.

Our therapeutic and theological work inform each other, challenging the community to respond to the health needs of individuals, especially children and young people, whose lives have been shattered due to the pandemic and who are struggling with the fears of climate change, war, and anxieties building up in their family lives. We are also seeking through this project to respond to the healing of communities and to the earth.