In addition to our continuous plant support with Chester Zoo, 2023 has so far involved making plant donations to two new wonderful and very worth, good causes.
Firstly, community charity, An Hour for Others in Liverpool benefitted from some plants to enhance the yard at their Community Hub base.
The charity seeks to harness the power of the wider community and local businesses to simply give their time, expertise or resources for the good of those less fortunate and a visit to their website, demonstrates the many ways they have successfully achieved this so far.
Secondly, we’ve helped a homeless charity in Manchester called The Booth Centre.
To begin with, The Booth Centre put out a request on social media for any unwanted mugs, to ensure they always had spare mugs for use when offering hot drinks to any homeless visitors to the centre.
Our team were quick to respond and shortly afterwards we dropped two boxes of mugs off at the Centre – closely followed a couple of weeks later, by some plants donations for both their community lounge and also for the Centre’s greatest pride, their community garden.
Helping good causes with these smaller gestures, means we have the capacity to help more.
If you know of a space which might benefit from a splash of natural green, get in touch with us: ruby@iwantplants.co.uk
“Thank you again for the plants that we collected last week, these have all been planted now across the indoor habitats. Some went into each of the following houses; Elephant House, Monkey House and Jaguar House, along with the Tropical Realm…..”
We’ve been doing our bit for the last 15 years to support the North of England Zoological Society (NEZS) the parent company of Chester Zoo. The Zoological Society are committed to ensuring the well-being and protection of endangered wildlife and we are committed to helping them with their endeavours.
Any suitable live plants and trees that are returned to our nursery post project are donated to Chester Zoo. This goes some way to helping them restock enclosures and replicate the animals’ natural habitat.
So next time you are admiring Macaws in the aviary or spotting Jaguars in a a leafy enclosure think of us!
“Trying to recreate the natural habitats of our animals and provide them with a home that they find comfortable yet enriching, is a challenge. However, the plants that you have kindly donated, have gone a long way in helping us to achieve this and are already proving to be very popular with many of our rarest tropical birds.”
– Chester Zoo
The Tim Bacon Foundation was set up in Tim’s memory by his Business Partner Jeremy Roberts after Tim very sadly lost his battle with cancer in 2016.
Tim Bacon was a pioneer of the hospitality industry and alongside his business partner, Jeremy, founded the Living Ventures Group.
Originating in the North West and now found all over the country, it’s more than likely you will have visited one of their restaurants/bars and we’re extremely proud to have been ‘greening’ their establishments since the Group’s early days. (Living Venture brands include Alchemist, New World Trading Company, Grand Pacific and more).
The Foundation raises funds to support research projects and charities that offer support and services to anyone affected by cancer whilst at the same time continuing Tim’s legacy and celebrating his life.
And thanks to the Foundation, we became involved with another local cancer charity, The Joshua Tree (see below)
In September 2022, the Tim Bacon Foundation hosted their second ‘Dream the Impossible’ fund raising event where simultaneous dinners for around 1350 people took place in eleven of Manchester’s top restaurants and this was followed by an after-party for all of the dinner guests at Albert Hall with silent auction too.
So when we received an enquiry from the Foundation, asking for our help to dress the Albert Hall venue entrance, it was the easiest ‘Yes’ ever!
The event was a fabulous success raising £425,00 to be distributed between eight Manchester cancer charities
The Joshua Tree is an incredible charity based in Northwich, Cheshire and was set up by Lynda and David Hill after sadly, their son Joshua was diagnosed with Leukaemia.
The charity supports families across The Northwest and North Wales living with the life-changing experience of childhood cancers and the centre offers a variety of support for these affected families.
Through our relationship with The Tim Bacon Foundation, at the beginning of 2021, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to assist The Joshua Tree and add more greenery to the centre.
We donated and installed a HYVERT living green wall to the external area and a selection of replica planters were donated for the new, purpose-built centre’s interior.
We were also very privileged to have a tour of the centre with Helen from The Joshua Tree and a few months later, they kindly sent us another photo of HYVERT – established and absolutely loving its new home.
It’s been a lovely project to support. They’re an incredible team of people and we wish them all the very best in their amazing new building.
When you’re working with plants, new project opportunities are never far away, so when a request to volunteer and donate our time and plants to a local project featuring on popular TV programme DIY SOS came in, we jumped at the invitation.
The whole experience was extremely rewarding; playing a part in the transformation of the property and garden area and seeing the sheer delight from the family at the finish. An absolute pleasure to be involved and fab to meet the DIY SOS crew too.
And in July 2021, whilst supporting our Client Bruntwood as part of their ‘Bruntwood Cares’ programme, we gave our time/resources and worked alongside other Bruntwood suppliers with the overall goal of improving the outside space for The Seashell Trust Charity in Cheadle Hulme.
The Seashell Trust provides education and care for children and young people with profound and complex special educational needs.
We were delighted to be invited by Bruntwood to participate in this very rewarding community project