Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs

Funded on
16 Jan 2025

Securing income & volunteering on a St Helen's veg care farm. Diversifying into plant nursery raising rare plants for Merseyside's peatbog nature reserves, partnering with Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

£4,840 Raised of £4,840

9 Backers

100%

Updates

Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs published their Delivery Report!10 months ago

Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs hit its fundraising target!1 year ago

Brilliant news, thanks everyone!

7 Donations worth £1401 year ago

Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs has reached 90% of its target!1 year ago

Brian Rider pledged £2002 years ago

5 people liked Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs2 years ago

Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs started fundraising!2 years ago

Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs verified by Spacehive.2 years ago

Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs started fundraising!2 years ago

Save Merseyside care farm and peat bogs joined: LCR Community Environment Fund 2 years ago

Making it easier for residents to create sustainability projects that will improve their local area.

Climate Friendly Food CIC was founded in 2009 by three vegetable growers who were advocates for ultra-low carbon food and Jonathan Smith separately created a footprint calculator https://calculator.farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk

Jenny Griggs went onto create a care farm - "Fir Tree Community Growers" in St Helens and received five years funding under Big Lotteries Local Food. Between 2010 – 2015, we worked on average with 2000 beneficiaries a year.

From 2015, the decision was made to continue the care farm solely with traded income from produce which has meant the outreach ambition had to be reduced, principally because Jenny worked full time elsewhere. Jenny Griggs at that time became a volunteer and joined forces with Organic Direct’s Kirsty Montgomery becoming a co-director.

Jenny and Kirsty are experienced therapeutic horticulturalists and run two volunteer days every week – Jenny on a Tuesday and Kirsty on a Friday. Our third director is Alan Abbott who is the landlord of the wider farm. Alan (who is in his late 70s) does all the wider mowing and field cultivations with his tractor.

Fir Tree Community Growers’ care farm is on 5 acres. Our majority income is vegetables and orchard fruit and we have some innovative features including earthworks for children to enjoy adventures and are piloting “wet farming” crops including irises for cut flowers.

Everyone is a volunteer. The majority of the eight-strong core volunteer team (also steering group) and drop in community members (30+) have protected characteristics especially disability and older people at risk of social isolation. We run farm open days and training days which are well attended by the local community. We average 4000 volunteer hours per annum and most of the volunteers would be considered marginalised principally because of diagnosed mental health conditions and age.. Five of our volunteers are men over 60..

Project Owner: Climate Friendly Food CIC Trading as Fir Tree Community Growers The Project Owner takes legal responsibility for receiving and spending the funds raised and ensuring the project is delivered.