Record Year for Open Gardens and Fundraising for Healthcare

The National Garden Scheme has announced that following a record year of fundraising, over £3.4m will be donated to UK charities, largely to nursing and caring charities including the QNI, which receives £425,000.

Dr Crystal Oldman CBE, the QNI’s Chief Executive commented, ‘On behalf of the QNI, the 2500 Queen’s Nurses supported by this funding, and the thousands of other community nurses in our networks who will also benefit, I would like to thank The National Garden Scheme for this incredibly generous donation.

The funds raised by the many garden owners and volunteers are of huge and growing importance to the nursing and caring sector in the UK. It is thanks to the NGS grant that the QNI is able to offer such a diverse and sustained range of support to community nurses, and through them to the individuals, families and communities in need of their expert care.

I would like to encourage all community nurses to visit an NGS garden in 2024. There are gardens open in every part of the country, at nearly all times of the year starting in early spring. By visiting an open garden, you are not only raising much needed funds for nursing and caring charities, you are also taking a real step in self-care – growing evidence shows that visiting a garden has measurable benefits for mental and emotional health and wellbeing.’

To view the National Garden Scheme impact report, go to: https://ngs.org.uk/our-impact-in-2023/

For more information about how you can support the National Garden Scheme, go to: https://ngs.org.uk/

ENDS

From The National Garden Scheme:

The National Garden Scheme gives visitors unique access to exceptional private gardens in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands. Thanks to the generosity of garden owners, volunteers and visitors we have donated over £67 million to nursing and health charities and in 2022 made an annual donation of £3.11 million. Our core beneficiaries include Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Hospice UK and The Queen’s Nursing Institute.

The National Garden Scheme doesn’t just open beautiful gardens for charity – we are passionate about the physical and mental health benefits of gardens too. We also support charities doing amazing work in gardens and health and grant bursaries to help community gardening projects.