Blooming brilliant effort!
Everything in the garden’s lovely at Housteads Residential Care Home…thanks to staff at one of Sheffield’s biggest law firms, Sheffield University students and charitable organisation Business in the Community.
Housteads residents can now enjoy the pleasures, sights and fragrances of their own sensory garden after former Sheffield University student and Sheffcare employee Jodie Cole embarked on an ambitious green-fingered community project.
Jodie, part of the Sheffcare Business Development Team, set the ball rolling by contacting Jon Burchell of the University of Sheffield Management School and asking him to get students involved in the sensory garden scheme. Jon in turn got city law firm Irwin Mitchell on board, together with charity organisation Business in the Community, who both agreed to provide help and support for student team leaders.
Along with a grant from the Church Burgesses charitable organisation, students also mounted their own fundraising campaign and even persuaded the city centre Ha Ha Bar and Grill to donate four sets of patio tables and chairs. Students and Irwin Mitchell volunteers then carried out the hard work of setting out, constructing and planting the new garden.
“The team raised more than £2,000 in total,” said Jodie. “They still have part of that left, which is due to be spent on a pergola to act as a main feature of the garden. Blooming brilliant!