A growing mental health charity can help even more people in its town thanks to more than £360,000 of long-term Lottery funding.
Don’t Lose Hope’s Community Garden and Shed has been awarded £364,680 over five years by the National Lottery Community Fund.
It will help secure the future of the shed and garden for the next five years at least
The Bourne charity was set up by CEO and founder, Nicola Brister, in 2018 to help provide affordable counselling sessions, and three years later opened the shed and garden as an offshoot to help reduce social isolation.
About 250 people a week now use it for social therapy, part of a blossoming package of help offered by the charity.
A year went into putting its funding bid together which proved time well spent.
A workshop at the Don’t Lose Hope community garden and shed. Photo: Iliffe Media
“We did a five-year plan and we also did a back-up three-year plan just in case the five-year plan wasn’t accepted,” said Dom Brister who runs the garden and shed.
“When it went to the panel, they looked at the difference that this place is making, signed it off straightaway and were only too pleased to support it.
“From our point of view, it’s great that a national charity is recognising what we’re doing over here in Bourne.”
Don’t Lose Hope founder and CEO, Nicola Brister
The grant will be worth £72,900 a year, enough to cover the annual running costs of around £50,000 and also buy and maintain equipment that they provide.
And, crucially, it means more of what the charity raises can go directly to its counselling service.
Set up as a small-scale charity, Don’t Lose Hope now has more than 100 volunteers and supports around 1,000 people each week through a range of service.
Dom Brister (second left) and volunteer Emma Taylor at the garden and shed with former Mayor of Bourne, Paul Fellows and his wife Judith
Its original team of four trained counsellors has also grown to more than 30, with around 200 sessions held every week.
Appointments cost £15, £25 and £35 or free to those in receipt of state benefits.
“The funding is a massive benefit to the community garden and shed, but it’s also a benefit to the charity,” Dom explained.
“The shed and garden has been funded up until now through donations and funding to the charity, alongside a small lottery grant in the first three years, which has meant that any money coming over to support this place has stopped it being used for counselling sessions and other things.”
As well as giving people a comfortable space to meet people and combat loneliness, ‘pottering’ with activities such as DIY, woodwork, metalwork and gardening is used as an informal therapy.
It has proved particularly effective for middle-aged and older men.
“If you stick six guys in a room and ask them to talk about their mental health they’ll all leave,” said Dom.
“But if you stick six guys in the shed with a lawnmower on a table and ask them to fix it, within 20 minutes, they’ll all know everyone’s family names and where they worked and how they take their teas and coffees.
“You might get the lawnmower fixed in about six months, but guys will talk shoulder to shoulder. They don’t tend to talk very well face to face.”
Dom added: “I think potentially the acceptance and the allowance for people to say they need help has increased, certainly with men.
“We support 250 people a week, roughly, through the gates in here on average, and probably about 70 per cent of those are male.
“We are filled by the older demographic and they will quite happily say, ‘we didn’t talk’.
“There’s guys in here that had issues when they were 14, 15, 16 and they’re now 70 and 80 and suddenly talking about them for the first time.”
It hosts different groups every morning and afternoons tend to be drop-in chats, while Saturdays are run by Emma Taylor and volunteers.
“Without our team of volunteers , we would really struggle. So with them, this boost in funding and the lease extension and support from Bourne United Charities, we can ensure the space for the next five years at least.”
For more information, visit https://dontlosehope.co.uk/
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