Can you tell me briefly about your organisation and its mission?
Our mission is all about growing food, which we donate to food banks and soup kitchens, and to our volunteers. We teach young people about permaculture and wildlife-friendly growing, and about the healing power of being in nature. When you watch TV, it sometimes feels like there’s not much you can do in the face of climate change and social problems, but this project is the small thing we can do here in Coventry.
What role does Team Springboard play in preparing young people for future employment?
We have teenage boys who work with us who have grown up so much and learnt so many skills. They’re now polite and hard-working, and much better prepared to do a job when they leave school. They were very rowdy when they joined, so it’s a real difference. The plants are my main passion, but encouraging teamwork, turning up on time, accepting and following instructions – these are all important parts of the project, and they’re just little things that make our volunteers much more employable.
I give references too, when people have been reliable, and it’s a real foundation for their progression. We have lots of volunteers who have come from under-privileged backgrounds, and they don’t have many people who can be a solid reference when they apply for jobs.
We had somebody who used to be a user, and they were so committed to the sessions that they even stepped into my role sometimes. They were teaching people the skills they had learnt, and it’s so inspiring to see someone grow in confidence like that. I was able to give them a glowing recommendation when they finished their time with us.
We’ve also worked with School Food Matters’ Young Marketeers programme, and the children this year raised £210 by selling their school grown fruit and veg for Coventry Food Network (an umbrella organisation for a number of food banks in Coventry).
Getting people together in multicultural groups has many positive effects – what effects have you witnessed in your participants?
The group at Team Springboard is great because you get to meet people from completely different cultures, races, and sexual orientations. Lots of our volunteers have never spent time with people who are so unlike them before. But when we’re together, we’re united, because we’re all growing, and so we share a goal.
The one thing I ask of all the volunteers is that they accept everyone around them, and I’ve really seen people breaking down the prejudices they held when they started with us. It’s fantastic.
Do you find that your work has an impact on people's ability to access fresh food, either through the work they do with you, or through food that goes out to the wider community?
It’s actually quite difficult because nowadays not every food bank will take the food you grow because it doesn’t keep well - they like things in tins. So that's why I'm happy to share our produce with whoever is willing to take it. It’s fresh, organic food! It doesn't look perfect, but we put real heart and soul into it, and so much of our energy. The volunteers are obviously very happy to take stuff home, and they don't mind if it's ugly because they understand the growing process better, and they know that how a vegetable looks has no impact on what it tastes like. And it’s lovely because some of the produce is new to people, so people ask how to cook rhubarb, for example, and everyone sends recipes and cooking tips on the group chat.
There’s also a social supermarket near us in Coventry, where you pay a little bit of money to get a lot of food, and they do cooking classes where they use some of our lovely organic apples. The apples taste great, but they are ugly. They just need peeling, but then you cook them up and they’re delicious. The social supermarket teaches people to look past the look of the apple, and teaches them techniques for using the produce well. There’s a Sikh charity that feeds the homeless too – they make hot meals with our produce, and cook it up into something yummy.
Everyone should have at least some idea of how to grow things, and we should start to grow more food in the UK. Even if only 10% of people grew produce, we could significantly increase how much of the food people eat is grown locally. It decreases air miles, and improves people’s mental health, and the food is so delicious: each piece of fruit or veg tastes so different. Last year, we grew over 100 kilos of apples, and 37 kilos of potatoes, and we grow lots of other things like garlic, onions and courgettes. All of these things are easy to grow in the UK.
It also really benefits the local wildlife. We're not completely no-dig and not completely organic, but we don’t use any chemicals and most of the compost we use is made on site from garden waste. So aside from providing food security to people who have little access to fresh food, we cut down on chemicals and plastics, and provide a habitat for local wildlife.
It’s a really important project, and I’m so proud of how far it’s come.
Team Springboard runs volunteering days for groups from all over the country. If you would like to get involved with their work, find out more here.
