Our Story
Our charity was formed by Haygrove, a horticultural business based in Ledbury, Herefordshire. Haygrove has always supported charitable activities, as many businesses do. But one day a member of the accounts team suggested actually running one, near Haygrove’s local sites of activity. This rapidly enthused others in the business to join in. The positivity that was generated surprised and challenged the directors and stimulated so much good within the business that they could only recommend involvement. This gave birth to Ross Community Garden, which took some time to establish [these things aren’t easy!]. However the positivity and momentum that was created among staff and beneficiaries [with less money than expected!] challenged the directors to be more ambitious.
The purpose of the charity, registered in 2017, is to share this future journey with other businesses and to impact the lives of more people within the gardens and beyond as a result. To give just one example of impact, representative of many:
Ledbury resident Louis attends one of our tabletop gardening sessions. Louis told us how much attending our tabletop gardening sessions in Ledbury has improved his mental health:
‘If you told me 6 months ago that I’d be doing this, I’d have laughed at you, because I didn’t go out at all.’
The therapeutic nature of horticulture does much of this good, however, it is the people involved, both giving and receiving, who make the charity fly.