Member Article

Garden Project Going Blooming Well Thanks To £45,000 Donation

The Blooming Well community project which provides therapeutic gardening and wellbeing activities for adults with dementia and their family carers in Northumberland has received a £45,000 donation from the Kavli Trust, the charitable organisation which owns Primula Cheese.

The Blooming Well initiative is run by The Alnwick Garden Trust in partnership with Northumbria Health Care Trust and provides gardening workshops for people living with dementia, as well as providing respite for their family or spousal carers.

Coinciding with National Dementia Awareness Week, the donation from Kavli will enable The Alnwick Garden Trust to extend its Blooming Well sessions from once a week with 30 attendees to five times a week and 150 attendees.

The current group is now four years old and is highly regarded by its attendees – although dementia can affect memory, those in the early stages still understand emotion and connect attending the Blooming Well sessions with happiness.

Managing director of Kavli UK, Paul Lewney attended a Blooming Well session to present the donation. He said: “The Kavli Trust, a charitable organisation which donates profits from the sale of its products, such as Primula Cheese, to good causes both in the UK and overseas.

“One of our key focuses is funding research into important social areas which can benefit humanity, with an emphasis on dementia. We see supporting such an innovative programme as Blooming Well key for the progression of dementia care and we look forward to seeing how our donation to the programme benefits the region over the coming years.”

Mark Brassell, Director of The Alnwick Garden quoted “We are here solely to support The Alnwick Garden Trust’s charitable initiatives and we are delighted with Kavli’s donation to Blooming Well. With the Elderberries Programme we are looking to help ensure that Northumberland is a great place to grow older, the Sprouts Programme’s aim is to enhance education for ALL younger people in the region and the Enterprise Programme works hard to ensure every young person in the North East has the chance to succeed.”

The donation came about following a meeting between Mark Brassell, The Duchess of Northumberland and Paul Lewney, managing director of Kavli UK, which along with Primula also owns premium pâté maker Castle MacLellan Foods in Kirkcudbright and St Helen’s Farm goats’ milk products near York.

Paul Lewney continued “One of our key focuses is providing research and support around dementia, so when we heard about the fantastic work the Blooming Well project is undertaking at The Alnwick Garden we were very keen to offer our help. We wish the project well and look forward to seeing how it develops over the next three years and hearing about the differences it has made to local people’s lives.”

The Alnwick Garden Trust cultivates communities and raises aspirations in a place of beauty. Inspiring and connecting people in an inclusive garden environment that creates learning opportunities and enriches lives. For more information contact Natasha Addis 01665 511350 AlnwickGarden.com

Primula Cheese is wholly owned by the Kavli Trust, a charitable trust which donates profits to charitable causes supporting research, humanitarian and cultural projects within the UK and worldwide. For more information on Primula please visit Primula.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Primula Ltd .