Across two days in March, colleagues from our Operations and Commercial teams visited Open Door in Berkhamsted, a community garden and café, to visit the amazing volunteers, learn more about the positive impact they are having on the local community and get stuck into some gardening!
This was a great opportunity for our colleagues to spend time with the volunteers and see first-hand the hard work that goes into creating and upholding this strong community space. Our teams were put to good use and the volunteers were hugely grateful for all our efforts throughout both days.
Open Door is a community centre where the goal is to help tackle social inequality and isolation by creating a space where everyone is welcome to connect and contribute, for their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of the wider community.
There is a café on site where all members of the community are encouraged to meet friends (new and old!). Our colleagues got the chance to sample the tea and cake within the café during their wellearned lunch break. There is also a community pantry open 24/7 encouraging the community to “take what they need and leave what they can”, a great initiative especially during the ongoing cost of living crisis.
The Open Door ‘Wellbeing through Food’ project focuses on promoting social connections through food and the benefits that cooking, sharing and appreciating food can bring to wellbeing, often using produce directly from the community garden! Last year, Harpenden Building Society donated £7,200 to Open Door.
It has been amazing to support this positive influence on our wider community. The opportunity to visit the centre and meet and thank the volunteers was fantastic. We look forward to visiting again soon!
