Satellites

Project description

Greening Communities aims to inspire, support, and train social housing estate tenants and residents, particularly in deprived areas, to create and manage their own community gardens.

Tenant-led community garden steering committees will oversee garden development, outreach, consultation, and long-term management. The charity ensures that committee members gain the necessary skills and confidence to manage their gardens and that they reflect the estate’s demographic.

The gardens will provide new opportunities for social interaction. For example, Mike from Amwell Court Estate, who has lived there for over 50 years, said, “Gardening enabled me to get to know people I had never spoken to.”

The Vision

Established in 2006 by local residents, Seeds for Growth is dedicated to improving health and well-being. Our vision is to ensure that health, well-being, and fitness are accessible to everyone. We accomplish this by partnering with, inspiring, training, and supporting disadvantaged communities to tackle their environmental, social, economic, and health challenges.

The charity

identifies community issue/s,
develops a programme to address the problem/s,
accesses funds,
and then recruits and trains local people to run and to deliver their project.

In Tower Hamlets we supported the formation of 35 community food co-ops located in schools and community centres, all run and led by volunteers. Over 36,000 residents were regularly supplied with fresh fruit and vegetables.

The charity supported and encouraged 500 convenience 24-hour retailers to start stocking and then to market healthy fresh food and as a result there were 547,500 new annual fresh food purchases.

Greening Communities enthuses, supports, and trains social housing estate tenants to design, create, and construct, often with professional support, and then to manage and enjoy their own community gardens. We encourage a food growing focus, but this is the call of the tenants as it’s THEIR garden, not ours !

Our unique approach

Seeds for Growth is the only organization in the UK dedicated to creating and improving community gardens on social housing estates, with a focus on empowering residents to manage these gardens independently. Unlike other organisations, such as Groundwork, which may assist in garden construction and offer some training, we prioritise enhancing residents’ skills and confidence to ensure sustainable garden management.

Strategic partnerships

To support our expansion, Seeds for Growth will establish active partnerships before commencing delivery in September 2025. Potential partners include:

London Food Security Network
Peabody
Royal Horticultural Society
Social Farms and Gardens
Soil Association

Knowledge sharing

Our partners will disseminate learnings to their members through newsletters, social media, and direct mailings. For example:

London Food Security Network: 31 large housing associations with approximately 1.5 million housing units.
Peabody: 105,000 housing units across the UK.
Royal Horticultural Society: Over 600,000 members.
Social Farms and Gardens: 3,000 members.
Soil Association: Annual social media reach of 258,000.

Inspiring Communities

In all 20 gardens, we have successfully motivated tenants to collaborate in planning, planting, and managing their gardens. Prior to our involvement, gardening activities were minimal; our support has been the catalyst for change.

Many participants have shared that gardening has allowed them to meet neighbours they had never spoken to before, fostering new friendships.

On average, we estimate that each community garden will involve at least 15 people in food cultivation, with the produce benefiting approximately 60 individuals.

The Mission

Our goal is to establish 600 new community gardens annually, inspiring 9,000 individuals to grow their own food, thereby eliminating food miles.

Short-Term Impact

One Year:

600 new community gardens
12,000 volunteers
9,000 individuals growing food
3.3 million annual garden visits (based on 15 visits per day per garden)

Long-Term Impact

Five Years:
3,000 new community gardens
60,000 volunteers
45,000 individuals growing food
16.5 million garden visits (based on 15 visits per day per garden)

Health and wellbeing impact

We plan to collaborate with a university to develop a survey method to assess the physical and mental health benefits for active gardeners and to track their increased consumption of fresh produce.

Carbon savings

We will engage universities and businesses on a pro bono basis to calculate the carbon savings generated by the new plants and trees.

Addressing barriers

We will analyse demographic data for each estate and compare it to the composition of the steering committees. If significant disparities are found, we will encourage current members to promote the opportunity within the estate to attract under-represented groups.

If this approach is insufficient, we will seek assistance from third-sector organizations representing these groups to address the shortfall.

For more information:

Get in touch so we can start working together.