Perrywood Donations Help ART Planting Projects
Our chosen charity Abberton Rural Training have been hard at work recently with numerous planting projects with the help of our donations.
“We were approached by Colchester Borough Homes and were asked if we could help a single mum and her 2 young sons aged 6 & 4 both who have Autistic Spectrum Disorders. The issue was that this was a project with a budget of £0.00 so all materials had to be sourced via donations from whoever was generous to give.
When it came to the planting, which included hanging baskets, bulbs, colourful flowers, fragrant herbs, grasses & fruit trees of the smaller variety, the main bulk of that planting was donated by Perrywood. This enabled us to create the sensory environment that would stimulate the boy’s senses, increasing their physical health & wellbeing.
It has been incredibly hard work and a massive job done by hand by ART staff, students & volunteers.
We have also created 2 other smaller sensory gardens using plants donated by Perrywood. One at a nursing home along Ipswich Road, Colchester, mainly focusing on smell & sight for the residents, some who have dementia and others just living out their final years who gain so much from just a few plants which they are able to see & smell from where they are sitting.
The second is at Abbeyfields medical centre Colchester for patients & staff which includes a community garden in the hope that staff are motivated to move away from their desks and take their breaks outside in the garden. Again the main bulk of the plants for both smaller projects were donated by Perrywood which included grasses, herbs, fruits, flowers & climbing Jasmine positioned around the outside meeting room.
Next week at the ART site in Wormingford we are carrying out practical tasks. Planting a container for seasonal display, which is an observational module within the level 2 City & Guilds qualification. The money spent at Perrywood’s most recently was used to buy the container plants which will be used in that task for the participants to create their own planting scheme within a container.
Thank you so much for past and the future donations.” – Angela Farmer, Lead Tutor at ART
