Curzon Ashton Community Foundation are pleased to announce the award of a grant from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to deliver the ‘Plot to Plate’ project which will aim to tackle loneliness for former armed services veterans.

We will be working in partnership with DB Garden Nurseries, Tameside MBC, and TASC to tackle loneliness by delivering a gardening prgramme to transitioning and veteran personnel across two outdoor garden sites in both formal and informal gardening services.

Our hub garden is located at DB Garden Nurseries in Hyde, and the spoke garden is Denton Allotments which is operated by TASC. 

The formal ten week (one 3-hour session each week) group intervention will be delivered three times per year (Spring, Summer and Autumn).

Each intervention will have a cohort of eight beneficiaries which will mean at least 48 military veterans will directly benefit from the project across two years.

Building emotional resilience to overcome the causes of loneliness, the intervention includes a focus on self-health for mental health symptoms of anxiety and depression. These techniques include reflection and journaling mindfulness/awareness as well as the use of indirect learning through the use of gardening metaphors on growth and rejuvenation (Spring), hibernation and reflection (Winter) and harvesting (Autumn) and self-care through produce you have learned to grow.

It has already been proven that this form of indirect learning is very helpful for military veterans to understand their range of emotions and feelings and how to handle then better.
 

For more information on the ‘Plot to Plate’ project, contact Isaac Keast, Community Development Officer, Curzon Ashton Community Foundation via email at isaac@curzon-ashton.co.uk

Please read our press release - Gardening therapy in Tameside for military veterans - Quest Media Network - Tameside Radio, Tameside Reporter, Oldham Reporter, Glossop Chronicle

Plot to Plate