For a small charity like our, sometimes a single item, event or resource can make all the difference to the lives of our beneficiaries and staff. Can you help us by funding or providing any of the following items?
Sponsor a Sustainable Growing Bed – a little step towards making a big change
Our no-dig growing beds allow soil-based biological systems to develop without being disturbed, cultivating the soil without us having to dig, using less water and releasing less CO2. Each bed has its own growing plan – with the food it grows being used to support all our other healthy living education – and each one provides a new resource for the therapeutic work we do with both young people and adults. The outcomes for therapeutic gardening are fantastic, so each one of these beds represents an opportunity to improve local lives.
For more information on the benefits of no-dig, visit the Royal Horticultural society website.
Individuals and businesses can sponsor a vegetable bed at Communigrow.
Recommended sponsorship: £100, £200 or £300 for an annual plot sponsorship
Star Canopy replacement cover
Our summer star canopy is iconic to Communigrow, providing shade from the sun and shelter from the rain from March to October. Raising it every spring is a favourite volunteer activity and marks the start of our growing season. However, 7 years of windy weather has taken its toll and the cover is starting to split at the seams. It wouldn’t be summer at Communigrow without the star canopy! The frame is fine, we just need a new cover.
£1400 will get us a new 12m Star roof in 470gm Skyline PVC, including delivery.
Weekend Family Workshop Funding
These are sessions for local families with children, particularly those living on low incomes. They aim to get participants active outside, boosting mental and physical health, and fostering a love of nature, caring for the planet and gardening. Harvesting food from the field, preparing and tasting encourages children to try new vegetables and develop a love of healthy food.
Cost per session from £125
Cost to run 10 sessions from £1250
Solar lighting for our Barn
Our woodcraft barn is more than just a workshop, it’s a place where volunteers, beneficiaries and staff can form friendships, find a sense of belonging and talk while completing practical tasks to support the charity. Young people learn basic wood craft / DIY skills and build their confidence using hand tools.
Solar lighting will make the barn a safer place for our woodworking activities, allow us to extend the times we can use the barn and keep all our power tools (currently in competition for our existing solar panels) fully charged!
Cost for solar lighting: £500
Field to Fork Kitchen – Solar Power
Cooking fresh produce grown at Communigrow is a hugely popular activity that really helps us to engage with children, families and individuals of all ages, abilities and income groups. Fostering a love and acceptance of growing and eating healthy food at a young age can build better health outcomes and psychological wellbeing for children.
Currently we use small induction hobs, with extension leads from our solar powered cabin. This setup can only run 2/3 hobs at a time – making group sessions a challenge – and is unreliable due to competing power demands. We would like to create a ‘Field Kitchen’ in our field shelter with its own power source. A solar panel installation would enable us to expand our field to fork sessions, giving more people the opportunity to develop their cooking skills and improve their diets.
Estimated Costs: Solar Panels and wiring/sockets (outdoor standard) £11 000 – £12 000
Event sponsorship: Communigrow Quiz Night
Business sponsors help cover the cost of these popular fundraising and profile-raising events that take place at the village hall in West Malling in Spring and Autumn 2025.
Sponsors have their logo featured on all print and digital promotional materials and have a stand at the event itself. The quiz is also a great opportunity to reach your local audience – we have more than 150 participants at each one – and are fun team-building exercises for your staff.
Cost to sponsor one quiz: £500 (for sole sponsorship)
Gardening/Field School Equipment – donations in kind
Giving our beneficiaries the best experience involves constantly repairing or replacing our essential tools and equipment, items like:
- Gardening Kneelers x 20
- Children’s watering cans 2 litre x 10
- Children’s gardening tools – trowels, forks, small hoes etc. x10
- Children’s gardening gloves (in a range of sizes) x 15
- Biodegradable growing pots
- Reusable crockery for our field to fork sessions
Signage – to inspire and educate
In 2025 we’d like to improve the signage around our gardens to better inspire and educate our visitors and learners. Signage would explain things like:
- How our Bee Bank habitat works and why bees are so important to the natural world.
- What insects and wildlife can be found around our wetland pond area and popular dipping platform.
- How our no-dig beds work and how visitors can start using these principles in their own green space at home.
We also need a lot of functional direction signage – labeling our different buildings, signs for our vegetable shop etc – and a large ‘Welcome to Communigrow’ sign with a map of all our gardens and an explanation of their purposes.
Sponsors will have their support acknowledged on our signs.
Approximate cost £4000 (or just sponsor one sign circa £ 250.00)
Portable Power Station
A completely portable power supply that can be charged using our solar panels and used as a back up, anywhere on site:
- In our yurt ( for delivering presentations using our projector as well as off site events).
- In our Woodcraft barn and polytunnels for power tool battery recharge. polytunnels.
- At the far end of the gardens – or anywhere we need power – particularly to help us cook outdoors.
£1500 for a Portable Power Station – £2300 would allow us to purchase an additional battery pack
Electric chainsaw
You’d be surprised by the number of uses we have for a chainsaw on-site, but primarily we would use this to chop up waste wood material for use in our Yurt’s log burner during the winter. It would also allow us to cut logs and lumber to similar size quickly so we can use them for fencing and wildlife habitat (bug hotels, log piles etc).
Stihl is our preferred brand (they made our electric strimmers and we love them).
1 electric chainsaw costs £412.92 including VAT.
