Since 1995, the Sherwood Forest Trust charity based in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, has been working with local volunteers, schools and businesses on practical projects to help the famous Forest.
The Trust is teaming up with local horticulture project Feel Good Gardens in a plan to set up a community tree nursery near Sherwood Pines Forest Park. The Trust will hold ‘seed hunts’ each year to collect seed, and service users at Feel Good Gardens CIC will tend and grow them into baby trees, ready to be planted out in Nottinghamshire.
The team was thrilled that their project was chosen for support by this year’s Aviva Community Fund. The project’s page, complete with a video about what’s planned is now live:
www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/sherwood-forest-community-tree-nursery
Emma Leverseidge, Community Woodland Officer, explains why the Sherwood Forest Trust needs saplings:
“This winter we’re running 12 days of tree planting at Strawberry Hill near Mansfield, with the help of local volunteers - from schools to local businesses. We plant the native species traditional to Sherwood Forest, such as oak, silver birch and rowan, but we need saplings grown from local acorn, berries and seed. Bringing in saplings from outside the area or abroad risks bringing in tree diseases and changing the genetic mix. With the help of Feel Good Gardens and the Aviva Community Fund, we can raise a new generation of Sherwood Forest trees right at the heart of the ancient Forest.”
The Aviva Community Fund – giving £1M per year - supports small charities with forward-thinking practical ideas across the UK. This year the Fund teamed up with online fundraising platform Crowdfunder to help eligible causes learn crowdfunding skills, and inspire support from the public, and also Aviva employees - whose 16,000 employees each get an ‘Employee Wallet’ of £25 to donate to their chosen good causes.
Jude Brooks, UK Head of Corporate Responsibility at Aviva explains:
“The ambition of the Aviva Community Fund is ‘Teach a man to fish’ rather than ‘Give a man a fish.’ By focussing on training and coaching from Aviva’s people, as well as enabling fund-raising, we hope to make causes become more self-sustaining.”
Patrick Candler, Chief Exec of the Sherwood Forest Trust, concludes:
“With climate change the biggest challenge on the planet right now, people are looking for simple, practical ways to help. Here’s an easy way to make a difference: log onto our Sherwood Community Tree Nursery page and let us turn your pounds green. Give a lot, or give a little. Here in the county of the Major Oak we know that from little acorns, mighty oaks can grow.”
