Cargill Volunteers Create Veg Patch at Yew Tree Lane

We were recently lucky enough to receive a call from Cargill, offering us the chance to develop a vegetable garden at our Yew Tree Lane Community House. We loved the idea – not only because it would give our residents the chance to work out in the garden, something they love doing, but also because it would give us the opportunity to grow our own fresh herbs and vegetables.

So far, the vegetable garden has been a real success, as expected our residents thoroughly enjoy their time working in the garden with Cargill volunteers, but, what we didn’t expect was how excited everybody would get about the progress of the plants – it’s become a favourite topic of conversation in the house! Growing their own fresh produce has also given the residents a new enthusiasm for cooking and the residents love using the vegetables they have looked after to make tasty and healthy meals. Working to help people live as independently as possible is at the heart of everything Henshaws does, so to have the residents so enthused about cooking, wanting to learn new recipes and helping to prepare them is a real achievement for us.

In addition to creating and helping us maintain the vegetable garden, Cargill volunteers have recently assisted Yew Tree Lane residents to plant sunflower seeds in pots in the garden. This has created a lovely atmosphere at the residence as everyone is constantly checking their shoots to see whose has grown the most – it really has brought out everybody’s competitive nature!

It’s wonderful that something which sounds so simple has brought such joy to the people living at Yew Tree Lane. Once again Cargill and their staff have worked hard to create something that has brought a smile to the faces of both residents and staff. We are hugely grateful to Cargill for their on-going support and help. We only hope that the Cargill volunteer’s get half as much from their visits to us as we do when they come.