Thank you for visiting our Crowdfunder page!
We are raising funds to help develop the food production and educational work of our community farm in Wellington, Somerset. For this our first Crowdfunder appeal we have a fundraising target of £20,000.
Please read on to find out more! Also check out our video which gives a good overview of our work and also shows off some of our stonking great cabbages!
We are very pleased to be able to tell you that for the first six weeks of this appeal your donation will be boosted by match funding from the Aviva Community Fund. Please see below for further details.
WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO
We are Wellington Community Food, a not-for-profit Community Benefit Society in west Somerset.
We run a Community Supported Agriculture project which provides delicious fresh-from-the-land vegetables to our local area.
We are dedicated to sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices that benefit humans, nature and healthy soils.
We have also created a fantastically successful programme of educational opportunities enabling groups of children from local schools to visit our project.
Our work this year has been made possible by our two wonderful contracted growers and our team of doughty volunteers. The project is overseen by our annually appointed Directors, currently five in number.
OUR STORY SO FAR
Wellington Community Food was established in 2022 with a mission to improve people’s lives by:
- Increasing access to healthy, affordable food for our community
- Supporting sustainable and environmentally friendly farming practices
- Strengthening our community by bringing people together around food and food education
Situated in the beautiful newly created ‘Green Corridor’ adjacent to Wellington, we broke the ground and had our first harvest in 2023, providing weekly veg boxes to our 17 crop-share members. Our first growing season yielded over 2 tonnes of vegetables and provided 414 veg boxes. Around 400 people visited the farm for our Open Days and we ran over 50 sessions involving volunteers on the land.
In 2024, our second year, we have doubled the area of land under cultivation and from 0.5 hectares to one hectare - this area includes land 'resting' and also areas left for wildlife. We have also doubled the number of veg boxes provided.
WORKING WITH OUR LOCAL SCHOOLS
We are really pleased with the success of our outreach to local schools. So far in 2024, 790 school children have visited the farm across 22 school visits from all 5 primary schools in the town. The children are invited to learn about how we grow the vegetables and to enjoy a range of activities from bug-hunts to planting potatoes to digging up carrots! With more school visits lined up in the autumn, we aim to have hosted 850 school children by the end of the 2024 season.
Some of the feedback from school visits:
"The children loved the farm trail. The children had the chance to dig up some carrots and take them back to school, we used them to make soup." - Teacher
"Really well organised visit, activities were matched to the age of the children and they learnt a lot" - Teacher
"Visiting the farm is like freedom" - Pupil
THE FUTURE
Our longer term ambition is to increase our growing area to 2 hectares; design and build an educational hub; set up a barn, poly tunnels, and off-grid power; create new wildlife habitats; diversify our crops and develop tree planting projects. As we grow we will be able to employ more people and to host a wide range of groups and create space for new projects on the site. We estimate all this will require around £300,000 of further grants and investment support for the benefit of our local community and the natural environment, for now and for generations to come.
Artist's impression, thank you to local artist Matt Slocombe for creating this vision for the farm:
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
Help us make Wellington Community Food grow!
- We want to improve the effectiveness of how we work on the land so we can continue to provide food in a way that is kind to Nature.
- We want to provide the best experience we can for our volunteers so that they benefit from social connection, physical activity and the satisfaction of a job well done.
- We think our education work in association with our local schools and is vitally important - we want to continue and extend this work.
To do all this we need to upgrade the infrastructure of our project and improve our stock of tools.
Your donation to our Crowdfunder appeal will provide vital match funding towards the following items for which we have already won a partial grant through the Rural England Prosperity Fund:
- Customised, secure shipping container providing shelter for volunteers and a space to sort and pack our veg boxes.
- A small propagation polytunnel for sowing our own crop seedlings
- Improving the access track to our field
Donations will also enable us to buy:
- A new two wheeled tractor with attachments which will enable us to work the land more efficiently.
- A comprehensive set of hand tools which we need to work effectively with our growers, volunteers and children's groups.
Costs summary:
- Match funding: £7,500
- BCS tractor with attachments: £9,250
- Hand tools and sundries: £3,043
- Total: £19,793
This appeal is supported by the Aviva Community Fund. During the initial six week period, each donation is matched by Aviva up to a maximum of £250. So if you donate £10, Aviva matches with £10; if you donate £250, Aviva matches with £250; if you donate £500, Aviva matches with £250. Please note: this applies to only one donation per individual donor.
If our £20K initial target is exceeded, we will use the extra funds to invest in additional polytunnel equipment to extend our growing season, diversify our range of crops and provide additional interesting work for our volunteers - especially when it is raining!
THANK YOU for reading our story and for watching our video - we hope you like what you see and want to help make this fantastic project thrive and grow.
Please donate and share our Crowdfunder far and wide on social media.