Gardening for health charity Thrive hosted a corporate volunteer day with home and garden retailer Robert Dyas at its garden in London Battersea Park. The Robert Dyas team swapped work for building relationships and garden equipment to promote good mental health and wellbeing.

The day was part of Robert Dyas’ Plant & Pause campaign which encourages the nation to garden their way to better mental health. In partnership with Thrive, the initiative focuses on the benefits of utilising your outdoor space to promote good mental health and wellbeing. Robert Dyas’ team engaged in some practical gardening tasks after donating a range of garden furniture and hosted a live social media workshop to demonstrate creating a sensory garden.

Robert Dyas Owner and Chairman, Theo Paphitis joined the day and said, "We were delighted for our Robert Dyas team to take part in a corporate volunteer day with our charity partner, Thrive. This wonderful charity, which has over 40 years of experience under its belt, does some excellent work to help improve people’s physical and mental health using gardening and Social and Therapeutic Horticulture. As we encourage people to garden their way to better mental health in our Plant & Pause campaign, we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect partner.”

Thrive’s CEO, Ben Thomas said: “We were thrilled to host a corporate volunteer day for Robert Dyas. These days are really rewarding and fulfilling. Coming together in the fresh air, surrounded by plants and nature enables teams to experience mental and physical health benefits while making a positive difference to the lives of people who attend our centres. Our partnership with Robert Dyas’ Plant & Pause campaign is so important in strengthening our message of gardening for health, and we are proud to be associated with it.”

As part of Robert Dyas’ Plant & Pause campaign, the retailer has also announced the winner of its Nominate Your Community Space competition, NHS St George’s Hospital in Tooting. Thrive joined the judging panel for the nationwide competition that encouraged people to nominate a green community space in their local area, which had the potential to be transformed for the mental and physical health of their community.

Follow the partnership online with tips and guidance from two gardening experts, Robert Dyas and Thrive. Learn more about getting your company involved with Thrive at thrive.org.uk/get-involved/corporate-support.