A Thank You to all our Wonderful Volunteers!

Our new family volunteer plots are up and running and looking great! We have allocated the plots to residents living in the Big Local Gateshead area, who have little or no outdoor growing space at home. The families have a small plot of their own to grow whatever they choose and in return they have been helping with weeding and watering the main site to ensure all our wonderful veggies make it to harvest!

Our youngest volunteer Adeline hard at work!

Thank you to all of you for getting involved and a special big thank you to Gemma and Grant and to Rob, for all the extra things that you do. The allotment would not be looking so great without all your valued help and support.

This year the produce we grow at the allotment is being donated to Best of Bensham Community Meals Scheme. A weekly hot meal, prepared by volunteers, which is distributed to around 50 people in our community.

This weeks produce all ready to go to Bensham Court

Each Tuesday, we harvest a selection of vegetables which are used in the meals that week. Big Local Gateshead are really pleased to be able to play a small role in this wonderful scheme. Thank you as well to all the volunteers who make this important project happen!

The volunteers garden patches looking nice and green

Your chance to volunteer for your community?

We are looking for volunteers to help clear and revive another local allotment – our friends at ‘Gateshead Carers’ have an allotment on the same site as Big Local Gateshead’s community allotment that has become really overgrown and unusable. It needs a bit of a ‘community push’ to turn it around! Can you help?

As a first step we are looking for a few (around 6) fit volunteers to form a small Big Local/Best of Bensham volunteer group who would help to clear a section of the carers allotment on specific days of the week. Up to 2 other groups will take on other sections of the allotment on different days. Please email your details to: hello@blgateshead.org.uk if you would be able to help out.

Finally, I hope your sunflowers are all coming along well? Keep looking after them and we will launch our sunflower competition towards the end of the month!

Keep safe and well everyone! Suzanne

There’s going to be some tough competition, here’s resident Debra’s sunflower from almost 1 month ago!