Plantathon Event Raises £2,790 for Local Charity Partners
Customer and colleagues at Squire’s Garden Centres enjoyed a fun day of planting last week – despite the weather – at Squire’s Plantathon event in support of their ‘Charity of the Year’ partners, raising £2,790 for 14 local charities. Autumn containers were planted up to raise funds for the charities, and the event also was an enjoyable opportunity to chat to customers about the work of the charities
The event, which took place at 14 Squire’s garden centres, saw Squire’s teams and volunteers from each charity partner welcome customers to a special planting up ‘station’. The day saw some beautiful containers created across the group. Despite the unseasonal weather, with heavy downpours on the day, it was a great opportunity to welcome customers – many of whom participated in planting up their own autumn containers. It was also a chance to celebrate each centre’s support of their charity, while getting to know one another a little better. Customers enjoyed chatting to centre staff and took the chance to ask questions to Squire’s gardening experts about autumn planting.
Squire’s Plantathon charity event also helped kick-start the autumn gardening season. September commences nature’s time to plant – offering optimum conditions with soil still warm from summer and moist with autumn rain. A perfect combination to plant autumn shrubs and hardy plants as well as flowering bulbs for the spring. The event demonstrated that being surrounded by plants brings happiness* and being connected to, and helping, other people brings a sense of satisfaction through the connectivity of planting-up containers together during the course of the day.
Each container purchased, at a cost of £12 each, included a selection of autumn bedding plants, as well as a centre piece feature plant, planted in peat free compost, and included spring flowering bulbs, to keep the display looking good come spring. Proceeds from the sale of each container will go to each centre’s charity partner.
Sarah Squire, Chairman of Squire’s Garden Centres, comments: “It was wonderful to be able to welcome our charity partners to our centres and help get autumn gardening underway! The day was a great opportunity to establish some brilliant partnerships with each centre’s charity. I would like to personally thank the many volunteers who turned out to support the day and were so very giving of their time, as well as our customers who generously purchased an autumn container.
“Our Plantathon event marks the start of our year of fundraising for the important local charities we support and the day enabled us to cement some great connections with our charities. We absolutely value the local communities we serve and our ‘Charity of the Year’ programme enables us to support many charities close to our centres.
“We are looking forward to a year* of supporting these charities with some exciting fundraising activities in our centres. This in turn helps them achieve their ambitions within the local communities they serve.”
