SENIOR directors from across the H&H Group have fulfilled their pledge to use their free charity day to roll up their sleeves and get their hands in the soil at the North-West’s pioneering horticultural mental health charity.

When staff across the H&H Group of companies voted in April to support North West mental health charity Growing Well as their regional fundraising beneficiary for the year, the group’s senior directors pledged to use their free charity day to help with the gardening at one of the charity’s three pioneering horticultural centres.

In May, the Group’s Operations Board made good their promise, rolling up their sleeves on a sunny spring day and taking their gardening experience, or lack of it, into the vegetable gardens at the Growing Well centre at Low Sizergh near Kendal.

Founded as a social enterprise in 2004, Growing Well has helped thousands of people across Cumbria and north Lancashire to benefit from therapeutic horticultural activities, helping to produce organic fruit and vegetables in their three market gardens at Kendal, Tebay and Egremont.

The H&H directors who dedicated their day to planting vegetables at the Kendal centre included H&H Group chief executive officer, Richard Rankin, H&H Land & Estates managing director, Mark Johnson, Harrison & Hetherington managing director, Scott Donaldson, Paul Graham H&H Insurance Brokers managing director and Roger Blake the group’s financial controller.

“We all embraced the experience of spending the day with Growing Well,” said Richard Rankin, “anyone who enjoys gardening will understand the therapeutic benefits of growing things, and Growing Well is giving hundreds of people with mental health problems a unique opportunity to experience the healing power of nature, working in the beautiful environment of their gardens and poly tunnels.

“It was a remarkable day, and all of us will be encouraging our people to take the earliest opportunity to experience it for themselves.”