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How Sunderland Homegrown uses their nursery to improve the lives of those with disabilities - The Big Issue
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Social therapeutic horticulture site, Sunderland Homegrown, has used social investment to provide many with training and purpose at their nursery in Thompson Park
Providing training opportunities to vulnerable youth has been one of the main driving forces for Sunderland Homegrown CIC to approach social investment from Big Issue Invest. To grow their reach, they knew they would need to expand from an allotment to a fully operating garden centre.
At commercial scale, Sunderland Homegrown produce about 2,000 plants per year, even supplying Durham Cathedral and Lumley Castle with flowers for their beautifully presented gardens. The plant sales are reinvested into their partnership work with Sunderland College, where they offer work placements and internships for young people with learning or behaviour issues.
Watch Sunderland Homegrown’s story below.
Gary Hillery, Manager of Sunderland Homegrown CIC: Hi my name is Gary Hillary and I’m one of the managers at Sunderland Homegrown Community Interest Company. We work with the community offering training and social therapeutic. We’ve been here about two years now and we’ve got a full working nursery going. We produce about 2,000 plants a year, and we give a lot really good people a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
The area we work in is Southwick which is one of the most deprived areas in the North East. We work with a lot of people on a spectrum of social isolation and with a lot of unemployed, so we are trying to help improve their qualifications. When they finished at the end of the day, they feel really proud of what they’ve done, which we feel is a good reason to be here.
Debbie Byers, Director of Sunderland Homegrown CIC: This site was an old council site in the middle of Thompson Park. There was nothing on it at all. It needed to be redeveloped and landscaped. We got some funding which was for all of the polytunnels and the green houses, everything that you see on the site. We needed some money for wedges and stock and stuff. We were introduced to Big Issue Invest and they’ve taken a massive interest in us because of the social impact side as well as the financial.
Kevin Lloyd-Evans: I’m Kevin Llyod-Evans from Big Issue Invest.
Linda Rutter, Social Enterprise Consultant for Sunderland Homegrown CIC: I’m Linda Rutter. I’m a Social Enterprise Consultant in the North East.
Kevin Lloyd-Evans, Investment Director: “We invested in Sunderland Homegrown because of the people, and the people had relevant experience and what they had was really good support. Part of that support was provided by Linda.”
Linda Rutter: “I’ve been working with Homegrown since the beginning, and what we needed was somebody, an investor, who could understand the business from the get go. Big Issue Invest not only understood the financial models but understood the people as well, and the market that we were trying to operate in. Even though we were a startup, it’s really difficult in terms of expressing your business skills to access finance. Big Issue Invest really understood that. So they took the time to get to know Deb and Gary and the business, and understood the other funding that we had in place. Then helped them understand the role of investment.  So it wasn’t just about the money that was going in the bank, it was about the people who were running the business and the role of the money that was coming in. It didn’t just stop when the money came in the bank. Kevin has been really good. Big Issue Invest has been brilliant in terms of helping us manage the money, helping us manage the contracts and helping us better understand business development. So Big Issue Invest don’t just provide loans, they provide loans with support, and I think that’s really critical when working with social enterprises.”
The investment into Sunderland Homegrown, through Big Issue Invest, is funded by Access – The Foundation for Social Investment, with finance being provided by its partners Big Lottery Fund and Big Society Capital.
Access – The Foundation for Social Investment exists to help make charities and social enterprises in England more financially resilient and self-reliant so that they can sustain or increase their impact.
Access does this through two main strands. The first strand is the provision of blended finance and the Growth Fund is the first such finance programme. Made possible through grant funding from The National Lottery Community Fund and loan finance from Big Society Capital, it is focused on enabling the provision of the simple and affordable investment products that charities and social enterprises tell us they need. The second strand is Enterprise Development, through which a number of grant and support programmes are provided for charities and social enterprises who wish to develop earned income and start to investigate the possibility of accessing social investment.
Phone: 020 7084 6833
The National Lottery Community Fund – We are the largest community funder in the UK – we’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland. Since June 2004, we have made over 200,000 grants and awarded over £9 billion to projects that have benefited millions of people.
We are passionate about funding great ideas that matter to communities and make a difference to people’s lives. At the heart of everything we do is the belief that when people are in the lead, communities thrive. Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, our funding is open to everyone. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups, right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.
For funding and general enquiries call:
Advice Line: 0345 4 10 20 30
Text Relay: 18001 + 0345 4 10 20 30
For press enquiries call:
Press Office: 020 7211 1888
When people are in the lead, communities thrive 4
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500572
Big Society Capital improves the lives of people in the UK by connecting social investment to charities and social enterprises.
We know that investment can help charities and social enterprises achieve more. We believe the greatest chance to improve lives comes when investors and enterprises are both motivated by social mission.
Big Society Capital engages with investors, fund managers, charities and social enterprises to make it easier to use social investment. With their co-investors, they have made over £1.7bn of new capital available to organisations with a social
mission, through investments into fund managers and social banks.
Big Society Capital have a special focus on: providing homes for people in need; supporting communities to improve lives; and early action to prevent problems.
Press office: 020 7186 2540 / 0788 587 9500
Bigger Issues need bigger solutions
Big Issue Group is creating new solutions through enterprise to unlock opportunities for the 14.5 million people living in poverty to earn, learn and thrive. Big Issue Group brings together our media and investment initiatives as well as a diverse and pioneering range of new solutions, all of which aim to dismantle poverty by creating opportunity. Learn how you can change lives today.
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