A1 Group support Freely Fruity Charity

Portable toilet donation to aid a great cause!

We were recently contacted by a new local charity called Freely Fruity, the name instantly intrigued us so we had to find out more! Ryan, the founder of Freely Fruity had an idea and wanted to get more fruit freely available in the local community, he turned his vision into a reality by creating their own allotment and have managed to plant over 400 strawberry plants, 600 tomato plants, 80 raspberry canes and so many other fruit and vegetables.

We love a community project and when they asked if we could spare a portable toilet to the cause, we were more than happy to! Fast forward a week and the toilet is set up ready for the volunteers to use. 

A Little more abour Freely Fruity - The world is their orchard.

Back in March Ryan mentioned to two friends, whilst in the pub watching a game about an idea, he had about getting more fruit freely available in the community.
Our original aim was to start planting fruit trees in the local communities so we could live more off the land around us, reduce carbon emissions by planting more trees, and saving people money by foraging from the fruit trees.

Then Covid hit us and we changed our immediate plan to start growing produce for the food banks. 
We had a land donated to us for a period of time which was on the back of one of our trustee’s house. We asked for donations of potato seedlings and plants, and we got straight to work.

Fast forward a few months… We had managed to create our own allotment, we managed to plant over 400 strawberry plants, 600 tomato plants, 80 raspberry canes and so many other fruit and vegetables.

By may our donations of fresh, organic produce was starting to be received. Each week the donations got bigger and bigger.
Over the coming months we supplied 2-3 food banks a week which totalled up to hundreds of kilos of free produce. We supplied 7/8 different food banks around the Berkshire area.

We are now planning our second year, with new beds and a 20m poly tunnel added to our space.. We are probably going to be increasing our growing space by 40%. Our strawberry plants have produced massive amounts of runners, so we will go from around 400 strawberry plants to around 2-3000 for 2021.

We now have full charity status and are applying for grants so we can start new projects around our community. We have some great partnerships already and have Blue Coats school helping us once a week also, and we were invited to present to the students at a morning assembly. Attached is is the presentation we used that morning.

Ryan, Matt and James all work full time and do this in every spare minute they have.. They also do not take any salary from the Charity and rely on their free time and a few regular volunteers to help them.
 
We have a great following on social media and have great media coverage of what we have been doing.

Instagram: https://instagram.com/freelyfruityuk?igshid=1f1vu3j7vov0p

Website: https://www.freelyfruity.org

Email: info@freelyfruity.com