Since forming as a charity in 2017, Missenden Walled Garden has witnessed and appreciated the significant benefits of working in sustained partnership with the King Cullimore Charitable Trust (KCCT).
Kickstart support from the KCCT in 2018 enabled the charity to purchase essential horticultural tools, providing beneficiaries with a range of inclusive community-based horticultural opportunities. These tools also allowed for diversification of trading income to help bridge funding gaps faced by both the local authority and encountered in social care.
In early 2020, KCCT supported the charity to pilot a vehicle to expand its inclusive work. This vehicle, crucially, facilitated the delivery of essential outreach activities to beneficiaries during the onset of Covid and subsequent lockdowns.
By 2022, having doubled its service, and with additional KCCT support, Missenden Walled Garden sourced a larger vehicle, now independently funded.
In 2023, following the collapse of the greenhouse, KCCT helped match-fund both a polytunnel and, after a successful pilot with Public Health Buckinghamshire, contributed to establishing the ‘Grow it Cook it Eat it Compost it’ community kitchen project.
Kyle Banks, Charity Director at Missenden Walled Garden says: “It has been such a privilege to spend personalised time with the KCCT trustees, and their founder – the late Peter Cullimore MBE. Consistent, generous, and considered support of this nature is a rare and precious gift and one which we all remain so very grateful for.”