We are Thrive Birmingham, based in King's Heath Park and after months of regular break-ins, vandalism and theft, we are asking for donations to prevent further damage and disruption for the people we support with horticultural therapy sessions. With your help, we hope to install CCTV and improve security at our gardens and office, so we can focus on gardening and not cleaning up after mindless attacks, which have a big impact on those we work with, our volunteers and staff.

Thrive Birmingham offer therapeutic gardening programmes to people with a defined health, social or educational need in the old 'TV gardens' in King’s Heath Park as well as various outreach projects in the wider community.

Damage

So far this year, Thrive has been broken into twice in April, another two times in May and once in late June. These attacks have occurred in the past but are becoming more regular. For this recent spate of damage, repairs running into thousands of pounds have been needed after:

- Angle-grinders were used to make holes in an emergency gate -

- Damage to teaching equipment, PPE, tables, chairs, fire extinguishers

- Damage to the plants clients have grown from seed

- Holes were cut in fences around Thrive’s garden

- Locks were tampered with on a teaching building and a storage container

- Theft of gardening equipment

- Damage to trees

- Graffiti

Sarah Bowers, Thrive Birmingham’s Regional Development Manager, said:

‘It also means repair costs, which for us as a charity is not how we want to spend our money, especially as Covid had such hard impact on our income. That’s why we’ve started this fundraiser for anyone who would like to help.

Emotional impact

Some of the client gardeners - people who attend the therapeutic programmes at Thrive Birmingham - also shared the negative impact the breaks in are having on them,

Another person who attends the sessions said “It makes me feel a bit rageful because people breaking in have ignored our hard work. We love our garden and it makes me sad people are so disrespectful”.

Alex Bailey, Thrive Birmingham’s Client & Garden Manager, said: ‘After all our hard work preparing for reopening, this series of relentless break ins and vandalism has really affected all the staff, clients and volunteers.

Thrive volunteer Anne Healy said the gardens normally offer a place to escape worries but the break-ins were shocking.

Please make a contribution to our crowd fund today to help prevent further heartbreak for our gardening therapy community.