Trip to Kew Gardens

On Thursday May 23rd 2024, 10 volunteers, 26 students and 16 additional family members received free tickets to the gardens as part of the Kew Gardens Community Open Week. During the week, the gardens became open and accessible to a number of local community groups. The day involved various free artistic and holistic activities that were free to join including print-making and yoga. However, with the sun out, our groups were more keen to explore the world's largest collection of living plants.

Some of the groups managed to walk the breadth of the garden. One group braved the high tree-top walk, and another group managed all of the stairs up to the Pagoda.  It was wonderful to see group members have the opportunity to make new friends, bond over their children and practise English. Many of the students live in built up areas and have limited access to green spaces so it was a fantastic opportunity for our students and their children to be in nature. As a thank you for participating in the day, everyone also received a free ticket to use at Kew Gardens on another day.

Volunteer Zubeya told us, “My group and I had a wonderful time. And we were very lucky with the weather today. We managed to get from one end of the gardens to the other and fitted in a number of major attractions!"

Thanks to a kind donation of paper bags from Specsavers, and a generous financial donation from a LEAH supporter, we were also able to provide food bags for all attendees, which proved very popular.