Reflecting on 2024 – our highlights & successes

It’s been one of our busiest, most exciting and most successful years yet – with new projects, funding streams and new partners coming on board. We love working with and supporting our growing community and we have a host of new projects and announcements to come in 2025.

Thank you to our team, our volunteers, service users, dedicated trustees and our funders. And thank you to everyone who values us and helps out – whether by paying us a visit, visiting our Green Patch Christmas Fair, buying one of veg boxes, attending a project, taking your family to one of our green spaces, choosing us as your charity of the year or simply following us and social media and sharing our news.

Wishing you all a peaceful festive season – we couldn’t do it without you. Here are just a few of our 2024 highlights …

Christmas Fair at Green Patch
Tree planting at Twywell Hills & Dales
Bike Hub at Green Patch

Grow Cook Eat

Public Health North Northamptonshire renewed our exciting Grow Cook Eat project this year. Thanks to their support this project, set up to support childhood health and help families in North Northamptonshire grow their own food and cook and eat healthy meals, will run for a further two years. Our Cooking With Confidence courses for adults have already proved a huge hit. We also have a host of events for children and young people and a new pot of funding for community groups and charities. All the project and grant information is HERE.

Green Doctors

Our FREE Green Doctors programme is now available for ALL households in Northamptonshire.
We offer impartial advice and support for households – to help you save energy, reduce your bills, and live in a warmer, more comfortable home. Our services include:
• Identifying causes of heat loss in your home
• Helping identify and tackle damp or mould problem
• Offering useful tips for saving energy and water whilst ensuring your homestays safe and comfortable
• Installation small energy and water efficiency measures, such as draft excluders
Find out how we can help you HERE.

Corporate Support

A big shout out to all the businesses and organisations UK wide that are choosing to hold their team building and volunteering days with us. This year we have welcomed the likes of global law firm Kennedys, local charity Accommodation Concern, Balfour Beatty, Capgemini and many more.
In the words of our Chief Executive Kate: “We love working with businesses both locally and UK wide, and many big names already use our green spaces to hold their teambuilding days and to run volunteering events for their staff. We are proud to bring people together through green and creative projects, offering improved wellbeing, a sense of purpose and a desire to strive for more. Get in touch if we can help you find out more.” Find out more about our corporate campaign HERE.

Partnerships

We want to thank our many partners. One example is our partnership with Brightwayz, who have installed a new active travel hub in our Kettering community green space Green Patch. This ‘Brightwayz at the Green Patch’ Hub includes activities such as regular ‘learn to fix your bike’, ‘free cycle service’ and scooting activities to take place on or near the site. The ‘active travel library’ means local people or groups can borrow equipment to make it easier to try out cycling or scooting for themselves.

Twywell Hills & Dales

Apples, pears, cherries and plums – thanks to a group of dedicated businesses and volunteers our community orchard of fruit trees is doubling in size at our Northamptonshire country park Twywell Hills and Dales. Thank you to the International Tree Foundation and international infrastructure group Balfour Beatty. Read the full story HERE.

Collaboration

By partnering with Made with Many and Greatwell Homes we have run a special, youth-led project in Wellingborough this year called NNcre8.

Our youth workers have been out and about in the Hemmingwell and Queensway areas of the town, largely on Wednesday and Friday evenings. They have had engaging and insightful conversations with young people aged 11 to 20, leading to a number of creative activities – inspired by their thoughts on their local area and provision for young people.

A lot of the conversations led by these young people has been centred around knife crime and personal safety. Young people have been engaging in a range of arts projects on the streets, including non-permanent graffiti work. Around 50 young people have also been involved in developing a creative piece of art expressing their thoughts on the local area. Read more HERE.

Grants now available

If you are running or are interested in running any projects around food, cooking and/or growing produce and you are based in north Northamptonshire we may well be able to help.

Our Grow Cook Eat project – funded by Public Health North Northamptonshire – includes a dedicated pot of funding for 2024-2025. That means we have grants of up to £3,000 for community groups and not for profit organisations in the north of the county. These grants are designed to help groups and people expand their cooking confidence and skills, tackle obesity, and are also about giving people access to green spaces and revitalising communities.

In the last couple of months, we have awarded more than £8,5000 to 3 local groups. Can we help you? Click HERE and scroll to the bottom of this web page for grant forms and details.

Youth Voice

Thank you to everyone who helped us deliver Youth Voice, funded through Family Hubs.

Targeting different age groups in different geographies across the North of Northamptonshire, we wanted to capture and develop the voices of the children in our county. Our activities included:

  • Bub Club, led by Made With Many – for babies and children up to 4.
  • Wellies in the Woods, for 2 to 5-year-olds
  • Green Rangers, for 5 to 11-year-olds – run after school and during holidays
  • Youth Forum, for 13 to 18-year-olds

Green Patch courses

A rolling calendar of 6-week courses have been taking place at our Kettering community garden Green Patch, with participants enjoying a host of gardening, cooking and woodwork activities. Our skilled development workers have been guiding these courses, supporting people to move closer towards employment and incorporating specialist life skills into the programme, along with basic Maths and English. Our first course was a huge success, and we want to say a huge thank you to our funder North Northamptonshire Council, who awarded us £11,250 of funding from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). If you are interested in volunteering and supporting this UKSPF project, please drop us a line kimberley.lawson@groundwork.org.uk

Support Cafes

These take place every Tuesday and Thursday, 10am to 2pm, at our Kettering green space Green Patch. Pop along on either of these days – no need to book – for free and confidential advice and support. As well as being able to chat to our Groundwork Northamptonshire team you can also meet experts from fellow Northamptonshire charities including:

  • Kettering Community Unit (KCU) which provides free Education, Training and Support for the unemployed, unwaged and low-income households of Kettering and surrounding areas.
  • Mind Northamptonshire – for crisis support as well as to find out about education and learning opportunities for those pursuing professional qualifications in social care, counselling, and psychotherapy.
  • Accommodation Concern – for housing, debt, and benefits advice.

Aspire NN

Thanks to a three-year injection of funding from North Northamptonshire Council we are about to launch Aspire NN –  a special project designed to provide all the support our Northamptonshire voluntary sector might need. Our new Aspire NN website – currently in design – will include a resource hub packed with draft policies, fundraising advice and best practice documents on topics including first aid, safeguarding, mental health, neurodiversity, recruitment, volunteering, trustee boards and much, much more. Groundwork Northamptonshire is the lead organisation for Aspire NN, supported by:

  • Support Northamptonshire
  • Black Communities Together
  • Serve
  • Northamptonshire ACRE
  • North Northants Social Enterprise Network
  • Volunteer Action
  • We are still working on the finer details and will soon be recruiting. Put simply, exciting plans are afoot.

Here’s to another exciting year ahead. See you in 2025!