Sunnyside Rural Trust

Throughout the years, DLL UK has been working with Sunnyside Rural Trust to help young people and adults with learning disabilities acquire skills and experience in rural work. Members from the Healthcare, Finance, Credit and FEC teams contributed their efforts by refurbishing and sprucing up their farm, caravan, log burner and mud kitchen! October was DLL’s charity month, and we hosted a series of activities to engage with local communities and charities. We believe that continuous contributions, no matter the scale, allow us to give back to our community and create an immediate impact.

We are hiring! Are you an established horticulturalist looking for your next challenge? We are seeking an experienced, pragmatic, and creative gardener, with at least 4-years experience, to carry out gardening contracts, support an apprentice gardener and lead a small capable landscape and grounds maintenance team who want to gain work experience. For more infomation, click the link below: https://lnkd.in/gGCe_2iU #HorticultureJobOpportunity #HertfordshireJobs #SunnysideRuralTrust

We are hiring! Do you have horticultural experience in a therapeutic setting and are you looking for a new challenge? We are looking for a talented and passionate individual to manage our new Orchard Nursery. This person will be responsible for the effective management of high quality, person led services for people with learning disabilities around horticultural therapy, training and skills development, social enterprise, and supported employment. You will manage our team of trainee propagators to make sure they receive the support, training and guidance needed. In addition, you will ensure that horticultural activities are planned and undertaken in line with horticultural best practice. For the job description and application form click the link below: https://lnkd.in/g6J-uxxc #TheraputicHorticulture #HertforshireJobOpportunity #LearningDisabilities #SunnysideRuralTrust #SocialEnterprise

Last month, an incredible team from the Natural History Museum came to our Hemel Food Garden site to volunteer for the day. Using upcycled garden materials, the teams competed in building bug hotels, which the trainees judged! Not only are the hotels beautiful but they will encourage and increase the biodiversity of our site by attracting different varieties of insects - a very special addition to Hemel Food Garden!

Thank you to Julie Dean and the ProTech Recruitment Ltd - Science, Technology, Engineering and Manufacturing Recruiter team from Hemel Hempstead for clearing our driveway and car park at Hemel Food Garden of leaves. Everything looks safe, clean and tidy - thank you all for your hard work!

Thank you to Danielle Beeks and JN Bentley for funding and building one of Northchurch's Trainee Shelter's - the team was incredibly hard working! The shelters offer secure spaces for our trainees throughout the entire year, from shade during the summer, windbreaks, and protection from the rain. We are so grateful! We plan to have these shelters plotted all around our Northchurch site, so if your business would like to get involved in this impactful project, get in touch with Paula, our wonderful volunteer coordinator: paula@sunnysideruraltrust.org.uk

A huge thank you to Karen Kidd the teams from DLL for their continued support of Sunnyside! During Global Volunteering Month this October, DLL went above and beyond by generously dedicating five days to work alongside us at 2 of our sites, Hemel Food Garden and Northchurch. Here's what they got up to: *Sanded, prepped, and painted our Mud Kitchen outside Sunnyside Up cafe & farmshop. This space is now brighter and more welcoming for families. *Sawed many logs in the Orchard area to keep the wood burner going, which will keep us all warm this winter. *Made a start on digging 1 meter cubed holes for the Hampton Court Tree planting. *Dug up our blueberry bushes so they could be relocated at Hemel Food Garden and Northchurch, which will enhance our jam making next season. *Refurbished and landscaped the pond area at our Northchurch site, ready for new wildlife to thrive. *Wood stained the pond fencing and tidied up planters outside the mess room. It's always a joy to host DLL’s volunteering days as everyone gets stuck in with a smile, no matter the task. We can't thank you enough for all the support, you have made a big difference to our sites! #Volunteering #HertforshireCharity #SunnysideRuralTrust #GlobalVolunteeringMonth

The future for our Northchurch site is bright and part of this is expanding it so it can be more public facing. Doing this will open up more opportunities and further training development for our trainees. Octavius Infrastructure , who have been supporting us for eight years, recognises the value of our work and has taken the lead on the significant project of reconstructing our car park. Work commenced on October 14th and wrapped up on November 1st. During the final week, the trainees participated in completing the car park, showing a true team effort (see pictures)! An outstanding amount of time and effort was put into this project and we are so grateful for the changes that have been made to our site. Now that the car park is larger and fit for purpose, we can confidently invite people to come and enjoy our wonderful site, cafe and farm shop. This is will have an everlasting impact on us at Sunnyside. Octavius have truly left a legacy. An incredible group of people came together to make this happen and we would like to thank them all: * Everyone at Octavius for bringing their supply chain together and supporting Sunnyside in their development * Sarah O'Mahoney at Octavius for her continued support and passion for the project * Hertfordshire County Council for their ongoing support * Cllr Terry Douris for funding and support * Northchurch Parish Council and Berkhamsted Parish Council for permission to expand and for being long time supporters  * Meehan for labour and machinery  * LLynch for plant hire * Connect Plus for material and staff time  * Fortel Group for staff time * Hertfordshire plant hire for donating materials  * Watford Plant & Grab Hire for donating materials  * Breedon Special Aggregates for subsidising costs of materials * Matt & Northchurch team, volunteers and trainees  * Paula at Sunnyside for organising volunteers * Chris Luff MBE at Sunnyside supporting for the project #SunnysideRuralTrust #LeavingaLegacy #BringingPeopleTogether

🌱 Huge thanks to Nathan Paskell and the incredible team at Getjar for their generosity and dedication to supporting SunnySide’s environmental goals! 🌱 Thanks to Nathan and his team, SunnySide now has a robust composting infrastructure that will make a real difference. By creating six compost bays on a reinforced platform, they’ve enabled us to process large volumes of garden waste, straw, animal bedding, grass clippings, coffee grounds, leaves, and brown waste all year round—something we couldn’t do before on unsafe surfaces. This amazing new setup means we can produce top-quality compost for growing vegetables in our market garden, fuelling our veg box scheme and helping us create more sustainable produce. But that’s not all! This new infrastructure supports all of our growing initiatives by serving our farm shops , our veg box program and growing our amazing perennial plants all of which provide valuable work experience for young adults with learning disabilities, giving them a safe and meaningful way to gain confidence and skills for more independent living. Thank you, Nathan and Getjar Construction, for being part of our journey to make a lasting impact on both people and the planet. 🌍 #SustainableFarming #Composting #SocialImpact #CommunitySupport #SunnySide Chris Luff MBE

Thank you so much to everyone at Beko Corporate that volunteered at Hemel Food Garden. Luckily the weather held out and the Beko team were able to clear an overgrown area, lay Mypex and create a space for our wheelbarrows to be stored. We even had time for some weeding and clearing of bindweed, which was a great help! Great team work from Beko as usual 😀 #HemelHempstead #Hertfordshire #HertsCharity #SocialEnterprise