Early reports indicate that the Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day 2017 will be a record breaker in terms of industry participation, sponsorship and for the grand total raised since 2012 – now standing at an incredible half a million pounds.
One hundred walkers - the most fundraisers for any single Garden Re-Leaf Day event - took part in this year’s sponsored walk through Cambridgeshire, which was sponsored by Scotsdales, GTN, LOFA, Outback, Briers, Cadix UK Ltd, GIMA, Kelkay, Town & Country’s Mark Butler, Hozelock, SBM Life Science, Youngs Coaches and Quinton Edwards. The event has so far raised £25,000 - smashing last year’s total of £9,000.
Special thanks go to Scotsdales, who fielded a team of walkers and fund-raised in-store, raising more than £1,000 for the Greenfingers charity. They are now busy planning their 24 hour Plant-athon which takes later this month.
Thanks, too, to Garden Re-Leaf newcomer Mr Fothergill’s, who have so far raised over £3,986 from the walk and the company’s ‘Go Green’ event held at their base in Suffolk.
Bayer Garden’s new owners, SBM Life Science, jumped in to support Garden Re-Leaf for the first time, raising £2,180.53 from office collections and walk sponsors – they generously sponsored medals, donated items for the goody bags as well as two welcome refreshment stations along the route.
The Garden Store Gallopers (Boyd Douglas-Davies and his team) raised £3,003. Cadix UK raised £2,221 AND sponsored a support car.
Greenfingers’ head of fundraising and communications, Linda Petrons, said: “This year’s Garden Re-Leaf walk was a record breaker that boosted publicity for Greenfingers Charity like never before. I know it was a real challenge for many of those that took part, and with many giving up their valuable time, travelling and organising overnight stays, it really was an incredible effort and on behalf of Greenfingers I must say we are so very grateful to you all.”
Elsewhere, garden centres raise more than £20k… and the total is still rising.
- Klondyke’s plant-athons are expected to raise over £8000
- Adrian Hall’s vintage tea party with raffle raised £320.00
- Aylett Garden Centre’s mad hatter day with Pippa Greenwood raised £918.20
- Alan Down’s hellebore tour at Cleeve Nursery raised £433
- Haskins raised a whopping £3,000
- Holiday Inn Colchester’s quiz night raised over £400
- Longacres raffles, food tastings and special offers raised a total of £2,566
- Millbrook Garden Centres spring launch raised £2,438
- Old Railway Line Garden Centre’s quiz and curry night raised £618
- Perrywood’s quiz night raised £1,155
- Orchard Park Garden Centre has beaten its target of £500
- Hillview are still to report the fund-raising from their megathons
- Andy Bunker and the team at Alton Garden Centre staged a Plant-athon that has so far raised over £500
Other garden centres and businesses staging events include:
- British Garden centres (static push bike)
- Chessington Garden Centre (drinks, pots and gardening sets sales)
- Coletta and Tyson Garden Centre
- Fairweather Garden Centre
- Ross Garden Store
- Langlands Garden Centres
- Paradise Park (daytime events and a quiz night)
- Rolawn’s (miniature spring fair and product promotion)
- Squire’s Garden Centre, Hersham (afternoon tea)
- Whitehall Garden Centres
- HTA (fundraising at the APL Awards)
- Deco-Pak (play pit sand promotion)
QVC and its gardening experts once again gave Garden Re-Leaf Day a huge boost. Hosted by Greenfingers founder president and presenter Richard Jackson, two special shows on Saturday 18th March and Sunday 19th March helped to raise a magnificent £37,000. Suppliers including Richard Jackson’s Garden, Hayloft Plants, De Jaeger, Plants2Gardens, Thompson & Morgan and Mont Rose of Guernsey all generously donated profits to Greenfingers. BBC Radio Cambridge held a special Garden Re-Leaf show on the 15th March, promoting the walk and the event in general, with local TV reporters appearing at Scotsdales alongside the local media.
Orchard Park’s 24hr Plant-athon event (left) was also involved in the first ever live stream on Facebook with additional vlogs, one of which was a record breaker for the Garden Re-Leaf page, reaching 714 people with 106 engagements. Over on Twitter, the number of individuals who saw the #gardenreleaf hashtag was an incredible 100 times that of the year before, with 267,490 reached during the week of the event. Gardening celebrities supported Garden Re-Leaf Day too; Greenfingers patron Ann-Marie Powell, David Domoney, Richard Jackson and Michael Perry all helped to drive social activity amongst their followers.
Linda adds: “We are delighted that once again that so many garden centres, suppliers and organisations took part this year. It isn’t always easy to put on events like these, but we hope that the business benefits of getting involved in Garden Re-Leaf Day have been realised by all those who took part and that, coupled with raising money to make a difference to life-limited children, and their families who spend time in hospices will be reason enough to see everyone return next year for more fun and FUNdraising.”
Date for your diary: Garden Re-Leaf Day 2018 will be on Friday16th March
