Helping Hands Gardening Scheme

About this service

Our gardening service is helps older, disabled, or vulnerable people take control of their overgrown gardens through a one-off gardening service or we help people on a regular basis keep their gardens under control.
 Why is the project needed?
Research shows that having an unkempt garden can increase the likelihood of a house being broken into or vandalised.  Not only does this help residents against this, it is also a preventative to unnecessary hospital visits as unkempt gardens can cause trips or falls.  It also gives vulnerable residents the chance to reap the health and wellbeing benefits of being outdoors.
What happens in a visit?
During our visit, gardening work is completed by a team of volunteers recruited from the local community, who are supported by a Supervisor.  Normally we would have three or four people tending to your garden at any one time, but naturally this does depend on the number of volunteers who are available to help during the particular visit.  These links to local volunteers provides the vulnerable householder with social support from people in their community.
Funding/ Donations
We do ask for a donation to cover our costs which are around £100 per day.  This donation covers our fuel, office overheads, maintenance of the gardening equipment, staff costs and most importantly our volunteer expenses.

During 2022/2023 we assisted 254 people with their gardens.

During 2022/2023 our volunteers carried out 11,158 hours of unpaid work.

​if you want our bank details please contact accounts@vcaec.org.uk
Cheques should be made payable to VCAEC.
If you are a British taxpayer you could fill in the attached form so we can claim Gift Aid on your donation too. 
Thank you!

​We also have an Amazon wish list if you would like to make a donation in kind.    https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/3VOQSGLKAWE6N?ref_=wl_share