Dobbies Relaunches ‘Helping Your Community Grow’ Initiative

Dobbies, the UK’s leading garden centre retailer, has announced the relaunch of its landmark community support initiative, Helping Your Community Grow.

Originally introduced by Dobbies in 2010, and relaunched with a brand-new look and format for 2021, Helping Your Community Grow is a nationwide project that aims to make local landscapes greener, so that communities can enjoy everything the great outdoors has to offer. The initiative will see Dobbies offering products, equipment and support to deserving projects and outdoor spaces in need of a refresh, helping to revitalise the local areas surrounding Dobbies’ nationwide network of stores.

Dobbies aims to deliver at least one project for each of its 69 mainline stores across the UK, with each project receiving product and equipment, plus advice and support from the Dobbies’ team. There will also be opportunities for communities to access small grants from their nearest Dobbies store throughout 2021, for requests that will brighten up the local area, such as bulbs for a colourful flowerbed, or even a communal Christmas tree to bring a sparkle to the festive season. As well as this, the small-format little dobbies stores will also be able to allocate funds to smaller projects.

Whether it’s a civic space, school vegetable patch or even a memorial garden, communities across the UK are invited to apply for support from Helping Your Community Grow now via dobbies.com. All submissions will then be sent to their local Dobbies store, to be reviewed and shortlisted by the team who understand the needs of their neighbourhood. A shortlist of three for every store will be open to a public vote, with local communities having the opportunity to vote for a project that is important to them. There will be one overall winning project per store, plus a national winner who will receive further support.

Graeme Jenkins, CEO of Dobbies, said: “At Dobbies, we are passionate about helping the communities around our stores to thrive. Helping Your Community Grow is a fantastic initiative that will allow our stores and experts to provide advice, equipment, products and support to projects that directly benefit their local area.

“We are looking forward to seeing the applications come in and finding out more about the exciting projects going on across the UK. We want to help make our local landscape a little bit greener, benefit people living in the local area and help boost wellbeing with green spaces and gardening projects.”

The criteria for shortlisted projects couldn’t be simpler; eligible projects must benefit a wide group of people in the local community, must be located within 20 miles of a Dobbies store, and must be able to be completed by February 2022.

Applications for Helping Your Community Grow are now open.

For more information visit: https://www.dobbies.com/helping-your-community-grow

Source: Insight DIY & Dobbies

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