Growing Plants, Growing People, Greening Communities…
Hammersmith Community Gardens Association (HCGA) is a local environmental charity set up in 1984. We manage several community gardens in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster. HCGA has a range of projects which include conservation training schemes, volunteer gardening sessions, health and wellbeing projects, environmental playschemes and environmental education in local schools. We promote environmental sustainability and climate justice within the boroughs and manage our sites to maximise biodiversity and encourage wildlife.
HCGA has a team of school gardeners who deliver environmental education sessions in schools on a weekly basis in three boroughs. These include formal curriculum-linked activities as well as lunchtime and after school clubs. We can also guide groups on how to make their premises more environmentally friendly and give technical growing advice. For more information about booking an educational visit for your group or for a member of our team to come to your site please contact us.
We design, install and maintain green spaces and planting areas across the boroughs for local organisations, schools and the council. We design planting plans using pollinator-friendly plants and environmentally-friendly materials.
To reflect the expansion of our work to neighbouring boroughs in 2016 the charity adopted the working name of Healthy Community Gardening Activities (HCGA).
Our People
HCGA is managed by a Board of Trustees, who are all local residents. Our staff have knowledge and skills in a wide range of areas including: horticulture, conservation, garden design, forest schools, leading guided walks, herbal medicine and many more. We have a pool of sessional staff so are able to take on short-term projects and one-off sessions. All our staff are highly trained, DBS checked and insured. Meet our team here.
Our volunteers maintain our gardens and contribute hundreds of hours of their time each year. Many of them have physical or mental health problems which prevent them from working in paid employment. We call everyone a volunteer regardless of their support needs or if they were referred to us – other organisations may use the terms ‘participant’ or ‘beneficiary’. We also host around 30 companies each year on corporate team days. As well as helping us improve green spaces, the companies make a donation to HCGA which covers staff time and materials. This is extremely valuable to us as it then funds the upkeep of the gardens.
We partner with Imperial College London to research the work we do and the impacts on people and the environment. We also host Imperial medical students on a community placement each year.
Our aims
- Improve the environment of the borough as a place for people and wildlife by maintaining quality green spaces
- Raise awareness of the links between the environment and the benefits of healthy living
- Encourage community involvement and caring in their local neighbourhood through one-off projects and long term developments. We seek to involve all sections of the community, not just the able bodied and the young
- Partner with other organisations to maximise our reach and impact
Take a tour
We offer monthly professional tours of our gardens for representatives of businesses, charities and local government to learn more about what we do and explore the possibility of working with us in the future. You will see the spaces and learn about the education, health and wellbeing programmes that they host. For upcoming dates and times, please email info@hcga.org.uk.
