Our fantastic partnership with Heineken UK began in 2014. It has been instrumental in allowing us to expand the scope of our services to many regions of the UK and become the national charity we are today. Thanks to the generous support of Heineken UK, we have planted and restored over 240 community orchards across England and Scotland. Just think how many vital insect crevices, bird-nesting nooks and blossoms for pollinators that has resulted in! – Orchards are an ideal place for wildlife to thrive in urban areas.
As well as creating orchards, this collaboration has helped us create communities. Through the partnership, we’ve involved over 40,000 people with their local orchard. Some of these people came along to fun events, like Apple Days and story-telling in the orchard, whereas many others attended training workshops and learnt new skill from us, empowering them to tend to their local orchard and harvest locally-grown fruit. Our work has now established supportive networks between community orchard groups in Manchester, West Yorkshire, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Birmingham. On top of this, thousands of people who are not actively volunteering in these orchards can also now access and enjoy these beautiful new spaces.
As Chelsey Wroe, Head of Sustainability at HUK, says, “our partnership hasn’t just been about planting trees; these orchards have been a really powerful way to bring people together to help create happier, healthier, more sustainable communities. Around half a million people will be able to enjoy these orchards on a regular basis.”
As the partnership draws to a close, we’d like to extend our thanks to everyone involved.
The video below, celebrates our fantastic achievements with Heineken UK. Cheers to that!