About Parkside Gardening Project

We are a community gardening project for adults with mental health needs.

We use gardening and food growing to support good physical and mental wellbeing and can be found gardening every Wednesday, 10am to 2:30pm at Newham Poetry House (former Bowls Pavilion), Stratford Park, E15.

Are you interested in joining Parkside Gardening Project?

Do you experience mental health difficulties and/or have a mental health condition?

Are you aged 18 years or over?

Do you live in or near Newham*?

Do you want to learn or share gardening skills as a way to support your wellbeing?

*If you live nearby, but not in the borough of Newham, please get in touch to find out if we have placements available.

What can you expect from joining Parkside?

At Parkside you can: Meet new people; Learn or share skills in gardening and food growing; Get active; Connect with nature; Help transform the former bowls green in Stratford Park into a blossoming community space

No previous gardening experience is needed. Tools and gardening gloves will be provided. We have two project leads to support gardening activities, but due to the nature of this community gardening project, we can only provide limited 1-2-1 support.

How to get involved:

Please request a referral form by emailing: park.side@chctcrp.org.uk or calling 07552 959 467 (telephone is Wednesdays only).

We accept self referrals as well as those from health and social care agencies.

You can also find us on the Well Newham Directory of Services: https://services.thejoyapp.com/en/listings/26348-parkside-gardening-project

 For more info and to see what we have been up to lately, check out our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/parksidegardeningproject

Parkside Gardening Project History:

Some projects are too small to function on their own and it is the Charity’s policy to assist small projects run by focussed people which lead to benefits for the local community.  Parkside is a small caring project that uses horticulture to work with vulnerable people.  Umbrellaing projects like Parkside is a good way to achieve the Charity’s objectives.

Being small meant Parkside couldn’t establish its own corporate identity having relied on parent bodies for that.  Parkside started in 1990 and when it became homeless in 2007 Parkside’s Manager (Sara Watson) approached the CH&CTCRP’s Trustees who decided to support Parkside by employing workers, providing insurance, accounting for its funds and tiding it over in rough times.

Parkside is now much more of a fully fledged part of the Charity and has done well in the last year to become self sustaining.  The Charity keeps all Parkiside money (like all its projects) in a ring fenced account that can only be used on that particular project.