Written by Kathy Ellwand, Volunteer Coordinator (Goonown Growers CIC)
Goonown Growers CIC is a Community Supported Agriculture organic market garden in St Agnes. Our mission is “to grow great food in a way that supports the health of our community and planet, and create a space for people to belong, learn and grow well together.”
In partnership with St Agnes Surgery (part of Coastal Primary Care Network or PCN), we have been providing weekly organic veg boxes on prescription to 5 local people with pre-diabetes and diabetes for the past three months. This has been funded as part of the roll out of nine new WellFed pilots, led by Volunteer Cornwall’s Climate and Resilience Team.
We have also offered support to WellFed participants to join our weekly volunteer day, and a workshop to build skills and confidence in cooking with seasonal food, funded by Cornwall Community Foundation.
“The participants engaged so well with the food, the volunteering and general community of the site. They’ve become a lovely part of our Friday family, it feels like it’s been a great thing for them, and we really value having them here with us”
Rob Alderson, Organic Veg Grower at Goonown Growers CIC
The programme started in June, when the 5 WellFed participants came to the farm for a welcome day, with local chef Andi Richardson (from Mindful Menu St Agnes), Kathy Ellwand (Volunteer Coordinator from Goonown Growers), and Tarna Morrison (Dietician from St Agnes Surgery / Coastal PCN). We wanted people to have the opportunity to get to know the farm where their veg is grown, and find out how to get involved, right at the start. They were able to meet other people receiving a veg box on prescription, and who are managing similar health issues and also hoping to make changes to their lifestyle and diet.
The participants learned to cook some simple recipes from veg they would find in their boxes, and everyone left feeling more confident about using their veg. Highlights were eating together round the fire, foraging in the hedgerow and getting stuck in with a bit of gardening, removing some enormous perennial weeds.
“I’m cooking from scratch and eating more healthily. It’s made me love my food even more. Some of the veg I’ve never seen before and had to google! It’s been great being part of a team and has really improved my mental health. I just feel I fit. It’s made me look at the environment and what I’m eating. I always leave feeling positive!”
Well Fed Participant and volunteer at Goonown Growers
Providing opportunities for the community to improve their mental and physical health is at the heart of Goonown Growers’ mission. Often, the price of sustainable, local organic produce is a barrier to people accessing good food. The Goonown team love that this programme helped get our produce to local people who could really benefit from it, free of charge to them.
Goonown Growers run an inclusive volunteer day every Friday, where volunteers of all ages and abilities come to help out, be together in nature, and cook and eat a delicious lunch together from our veg. We wanted our WellFed participants to be able to access volunteering with us as a key part of this programme. Volunteering at a local growing project offers many benefits for mental and physical health: time in nature, connecting to land through the seasons, being part of a friendly, inclusive team, getting active through gardening, and learning from each other.
“Great to be outside helping in the fresh air and felt I was doing my bit to help. It was lovely to socialise with all the other lovely people and have lunch together. Having the fabulous veg box was great, having all that good nutritious food to eat on a weekly basis giving everyone all their vital vitamins and minerals etc was wonderful”
Well Fed Participant and volunteer at Goonown Growers
“It’s been amazing to get to know the people on the WellFed programme. They have become part of life on the farm. Two of the participants are carrying on volunteering with us after the box on prescription ended, which is wonderful. We will be running another group later this year and we can’t wait to meet our new group!
Working with Tarna from Coastal PCN has helped us reach local people who can really benefit from getting involved with the farm, and also helped build relationships with other social prescribers at St Agnes Surgery to refer their patients onto our upcoming Nature & Health courses funded by Cornwall Community Foundation. The collaboration between NHS health professionals and local community food growers feels very exciting and a simple, achievable, scalable, step forward for climate and people health”
Kathy Ellwand, Volunteer Coordinator
About Goonown Growers CIC
We are an organic market garden based in the heart of St Agnes village. Our mission is to grow great food in a way that supports the health of our community and planet, and create a space for people to belong, learn and grow well together. We are a ‘Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)’ group, so we are powered by volunteers who help out with growing the veg, and people in the local community subscribe to veg boxes or ‘shares’.
Volunteering at Goonown Growers is on Fridays 11am – 4pm (winter 10am – 3pm). Feel free to pop in on a Friday to have a look around or contact Kathy for more information and to discuss any support needs you might have: [email protected]
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/goonowngrowers/
Order a veg box https://goonowngrowers.ooooby.org/
About WellFed Cornwall
WellFed Cornwall is a network of food growers, community food groups, health professionals, VCSE partners and others. We’re working together to create better human and planetary health through good food and food-related community activities.
Through the programme, nine new pilots are are being rolled out in communities across Cornwall, building on the original Newquay Orchard / Watergate Primary Care Network ‘veg on prescription’ trial. Data from these pilots will be used to help make the case for a ‘channel shift’ – aiming for some of the huge (and growing) NHS spend on treating preventable disease to be shifted upstream, to create good health and wellbeing and help prevent people getting sick in the first place.
The WellFed pilots are led and supported by Volunteer Cornwall’s Climate Resilience team, who are funded by Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board. The WellFed programme is supported by a steering group of NHS, Cornwall Council Public Health, Volunteer Cornwall, Cornwall VSF and Sustainable Food Cornwall partners.