Once a month , I head over to Wolverhampton to share my horticultural skills with all the members of the Crafty Gardeners.
The Crafty Gardeners is a community interest company based in Wolverhampton, which provides meaningful support and educational opportunities for adults with additional support needs. The crafty gardeners and staff are truly a great collection of funny , kind and lovely individuals. It truly is a great project to be part of .
They recently received funding from the National Lottery Community Fund for a “Grow Your Own “ project . In a nutshell , on their allotment(s) the Crafty Gardeners grow food, that they then prepare and cook to cater for events in the Wolverhampton area. They will also be sharing their knowledge of how to grow food with other community groups ,to show how you can cook healthily from scratch .
As well as being brilliant at growing food, the Crafty Gardeners are also highly skilled at plant propagation, and this is where I volunteer my time , sharing my horticultural and propagation knowledge . I try to get over to help once a month , if I had more time I really would go once a week.
John , my husband is a tai chi practitioner, and he often comes along , and runs outdoor tai chi classes. The students ( and staff ) really do enjoy this.
I intend to write a blog after each visit . In the meantime here are some of the things we get up to when volunteering.
As you can see , this is a truly great project to be part of . My only question is – have you ever thought of volunteering your time to a project ? I am positive , that if you do , it will be something, that you wish you had started earlier.
I will be back volunteering in a couple of weeks time , we may well be cooking our lunch on the allotment, from produce grown by the “ Crafty Gardeners”
I hope you have enjoyed this first episode. There is a now a new page on my blog , which will be all about this group.
I very much hope you will enjoy this new series of blogs .
Sally Wicks 