As you know Luck’s Yard Clinic has been part of a community project called the Surrey Teen Summit running health and wellbeing workshops for teens for the past four years. I have also taught wellbeing classes in schools all over Surrey and Sussex for the past ten years.

I have been concerned about the rise in teen mental health issues and wherever I teach the picture is the same: it is a true epidemic and it need not be. I feel that we just have to do something.

Recently we were able to take on the lease of a beautiful walled garden behind and adjacent to the Luck’s Yard property. We initially did this to give the team a wonderful relaxing place to restore during their lunch breaks.

However, listening to a blog recently by Dr Rangan Chatterjee where he interviews the enigmatic John Hari, who wrote the book ‘Lost Connections- Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions’, a seed was grown in my mind: how could we help locally using this garden?

I then decided it would be a good idea to use the garden for a community initiative offering gardening for teen wellbeing and I set about forming a working group.

Within two weeks we have a working party, a manager, and lots of volunteers. We created a Facebook fundraiser page and raised over £1,300 from donations worldwide, and then another £500 from local donations. The response has been overwhelming and we are hoping to liaise with our local GP surgeries and other teen support groups.

We have decided to call it the Luck’s Yard Wellbeing Garden with the project starting in September. We now are working on setting up the format, the necessary health regulations and much more.

And we need your help!  If you can offer any of the following, we would be so grateful:

  • We would love to receive any spare tools or garden equipment that you can give us.
  • Any help and ideas for fundraising for gardening mental health projects.
  • Spread the word for us – the more people know about our project the better the reach for those in need.

If you would like to make a donation please visit our Just Giving page here:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/wellbeinggardenlucksyard

To find out more about the garden and our plans you can contact our manager Maxine McArthur on wellbeinggardenlucksyard@gmail.com.