Lincolnshire Co-operative is raising funds for local environmental groups as part of its Community Champions scheme.
A total of 70 projects are being supported, including a Nunny’s Farm – a community interest company running a country-style farm in Nunsthorpe, Grimsby.
The farm is located in the middle of Centre4 – a community hub on Wootton Road, which provides a huge array of services to the local area.
Neil Campbell and Jo Holbrook-Morris started the project to address the disconnection between youngsters living in an urban environment and nature.
The farm provides volunteering opportunities for local people as well as a mobile farm service which takes the animals to local schools, youth groups and other community venues. Youngsters who visit get to meet Penelope the pig, Bob the lamb, Amelia the goat, along with other animals, including chickens, ducks and turkeys, goats, donkeys, sheep, guinea pigs and rabbits.
Mr Campbell said: “Jo and I have a background in the prison service. We’ve seen that often, kids growing up in an urban setting have something missing that’s really beneficial in childhood – that’s interaction with animals. We bring the animals out and sometimes there are kids there who haven’t ever seen a chicken.
“We’re focusing on animals at the moment, but we want to move onto food as well. It’s amazing the satisfaction you can get from growing your own – it teaches a sense of responsibility too.
“Nunny’s Farm is about teaching people and widening their horizons.”
The Community Champions Scheme makes a donation every time a member shops in one of Lincolnshire Co-op’s outlets. Shoppers in the area have been supporting Nunny’s Farm since June.
The farm plans to use the funding to develop a community orchard, fruit and veg patches and an after-school club for children.
Lincolnshire’s engagement with the farm started in 2017 when a team of volunteers cleared the land where the farm is as part of a Big Co-op Clean project in 2017. The Centre4 itself was a previous Community Champion, using some of the money raised to remove old temporary buildings from the site.
Centre4 CEO Linda Dellow said: “When they approached us and said: ‘Can we use your field to create a farm in the middle of the Nunny?’ I was unsure what the local reaction would be. But the community have really taken it to their heart.
“It’s taken longer than we expected but it’s all coming together – It was meant to be.”
