A £200 plot sponsorship, over 100 disadvantaged locals and twenty years of growing food for people who need it most. Petworth Community Garden CIC posted a request on Hyde’s Match My Project site and European Asbestos responded. 

Twenty years on the ground

Petworth’s Community Wellbeing Garden CIO started with an allotment, a group of volunteers, and a straightforward aim: to give people with limited means access to free, fresh, organic food.

This was 2005. Since then, the garden which is tucked into the heart of a social housing estate in Petworth has grown into a welcoming space with wheelchair-accessible paths and raised beds, a solar activity shed, a composting toilet, sensory and wildlife gardens, a polytunnel and ponds.

The people who come here include older residents living in isolation, adults with learning difficulties, wheelchair users, children with special needs, and families navigating food poverty. Each week, they garden together, share seasonal soup, take home a share of the harvest, and enjoy being in community with one another.

The garden runs Harvest Food Boxes which deliver fruit and vegetables directly to families who can’t get to them. And through their Plot to Plate cookery sessions, participants take what they’ve grown to a local cookery school, learn to cook it, and eat lunch together.

Over the last two decades, they have helped set up gardens in two schools, a care home, and a community farm project in the Petworth area, and supported eight other groups with permaculture design and fundraising advice. Kate Green,  Founder of the Community Garden, was integral to setting-up and developing the space into the amazing garden it is today.

The gap that needed filling

Running a garden like this costs a significant amount of money every year. This includes the purchase of insurance, safety equipment, and tools. Like many small community organisations, Petworth Community Garden finds that the funding landscape grows harder to navigate each year even as the need around them grows.

Their answer was Sponsor-A-Plot: an invitation to local businesses to take ownership of one of five garden plots for £200 a year. In return, sponsors receive recognition across the garden’s social media and newsletter, and a Christmas hamper.

They listed the project on Hyde’s Match My Project platform and European Asbestos Services found it.

The contractor with sustainability at its core

European Asbestos Services specialise in bespoke, integrated asbestos and auxiliary building services including surveys, removal, ongoing management, and fire risk assessment.

Sustainability sits at the centre of how they describe themselves and how they operate. As a company centred on protecting buildings, workers and communities from harm, the values that underpin a wellbeing garden in Petworth are not so distant from their own.

Karen Ferguson from the European Asbestos Team engaged with the project directly. 

“Petworth Community Wellbeing Garden is a fantastic project creating a welcoming, inclusive space that supports wellbeing, connection, and community growth. It is inspiring to see such positive work making a real difference locally.”

What the match made possible

Social Value is the measurable difference a business makes to the people and places around it. Petworth Community Garden already knew exactly what that difference needed to look like in their context. Match My Project made sure European Asbestos Services could see it too – and know precisely what their £200 would do before they committed it.

The £200 donation went directly towards gardening tools and equipment for community projects with disabled and disadvantaged participants and to make sessions possible week after week.

“We are delighted that European Asbestos Services have Sponsored-A-Plot at our Community Wellbeing Garden in Petworth. Their support will help us buy gardening tools and equipment for our community projects with disabled and disadvantaged participants.”

Eleanor Gloster, Petworth Community Wellbeing Garden. 

The real story here is twenty years of an organisation that never stopped showing up for the people around them. Support like this simply ensures they can keep doing what they have always done best. 

About Match My Project

Match My Project is a digital marketplace that connects businesses with community organisations and residents to deliver Social Value in local communities.  It takes eight minutes to add a project. Get in touch at hello@matchmyproject.org to find out more.