Gardening is good for our morale and our community project, aimed at getting care home residents, staff and neighbours involved in gardening, has been shortlisted in Tesco’s Bags of Help initiative.
But we need your help to win the top prize of £12,000 so we can help improve the lives of more local care home residents.
Our project will not only brighten up the environment of local care homes, but also boost the health and wellbeing of elderly residents.
The Community Garden project is a joint initiative between local NHS organisation – East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Hertfordshire Care Providers Association (HCPA). It is part of our NHS Vanguard programme which is working to provide better care for care home residents across Hertfordshire.
We have been shortlisted with two other local projects in the initiative funded by the sale of Tesco plastic carrier bags. Local Tesco shoppers will decide the winner and runners-up by popping a token into the box of their favourite project when they are in store.
So please vote for us NOW in Tesco Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield.
Voting is open in both the Tesco Extra store on Oldings Corner Hatfield, as well as the Tesco Express on Moors Walk, Welwyn Garden City from Monday 31 October to Sunday 13 November. If enough people vote we could win the top award of £12,000 to invest in our care home gardens.
Similar projects carried out by the HCPA SMILE Team in Watford and Dacorum over the past two years show that elderly residents who got involved improved their confidence and social interaction.
One elderly gentlemen had no interest in leaving his bedroom until he became involved in gardening, now he is more confident and happier and this has had an impact on his relationship with family who help him in the garden when they visit.
Tesco teamed up with Groundwork on this initiative to shortlist projects in hundreds of regions across England and Wales and ours was shortlisted.
For more information please visit the Bags of Help website www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp