Sail Away to Soothing Blue Spaces with our Residents
1st September 2024
Across Hollybank Trust, we pride ourselves on the relationships we build within the local communities we’re part of.
The children, young people and adults we care for enjoy getting involved in local community projects and attending local groups. As an organisation, we build strong community links by attending community events, linking with local education providers and connecting with other influential organisations within the local areas we support.
Hollybank is very community focused, and we thrive on our relationships with local businesses, schools, and people. We are grateful to be invited to local community events and we especially look forward to receiving our annual invite to the Roberttown Christmas Tree festival!
Our school also like to get involved in local initiatives where possible and as an example back in Summer this year, they were approached by the Mirfield in Bloom team and asked if they’d like to enter into the Yorkshire in Bloom competition!
We are passionate about helping young people gain experience to assist them in the workplace and so link with local colleges and universities such as Leeds and York to provide work experience placements in areas such as nursing, therapy and primary education.
We have also built a partnership with Greenhead college in Huddersfield, and provided them with virtual workshops on different careers available within Hollybank, and how to break into these sectors of work.
Growing Works
Some of the adults who live on our Mirfield site have enjoyed attending a local allotment project, Growing Works. They attended weekly sessions where they planted vegetables such as tomatoes and green beans! This was a great way for the adults and some of our staff to be present in our local community, while taking part in a meaningful project.
Sycamores out in the community
Over at Sycamores our residential home in South Kirkby, two of the adults who live in Sycamores, our community home in South Kirkby have been taking part in a local community project in their area which involves doing woodwork activities and creating garden features using purely recyclable materials and items. They’re also revamping Sycamore’s communal garden, they’re very busy!
As a part of their involvement in the project, they produce products to be sold in The Dr Jackson Cancer Fund Charity Shop in Hemsworth. Recently, they received certificates to thank them for their hard work as volunteers for the charity.
They were also awarded the Ken award which was set up by a local miner within their local community. The award honours people who reach out to help others, despite their own personal circumstances.
Roberttown Christmas Tree festival
Our school pupils and the adults who attend our ELMs service make tree decorations and then our communication team take it and display it at the festival. Other local businesses, community groups and schools are invited to decorate a Christmas tree and display it in Roberttown’s community centre. Local people then come and view all the trees and vote for their favourite one.
It’s a great place to network and to raise our profile within the local community!
Mirfield in Bloom
The children and staff in our school and nursery classes did an amazing job at planting flowers and plants in our nursery garden on our Mirfield site, they got very creative and even planted flowers in wellies.
The Mirfield in Bloom judges came to site regularly to check on our progress. We reused and recycled items for the garden and improved the area with more interactive activities to increase engagement for the children to enjoy! We’re very pleased to announce that our school won one of the Silver Harrogate Flower Show Young People’s Award!
University Partnerships
We have strong links with the University of Leeds and the University of York. We collaborated with Leeds Arts University and asked some of their photography students to come and take photographs of some of the adults we support. This project focused around removing the stigma of disability and enabled us to bring people together and allow the adults we care for, the staff involved and the university students to have a unique shared experience. It also enabled us to think about how we can focus on ability not disability and the personal images that were taken as part of this campaign shows just that.
We also did a piece of work on sustainability with the University of York, and facilitated a placement for one of their students who created a sustainability plan for Hollybank, which we are implementing and will continue to build on.
“We wanted to do more than set up a direct debit! Seeing the impact of our funding locally was a huge draw for us at Treka Bus.”
Morgan Clissett, managing director at Treka Bus
Hollybank Trust is a registered Charity: 1043129
