Suttons Seeds raises £8,500 for Greenfingers

Staff at Suttons Seeds recently presented a cheque for £8,500 to a charity dedicated to creating gardens at children’s hospices nationwide.

The seed suppliers raised the funds for Greenfingers by donating £1 from every £1.99 packet of Nasturtium ‘Jelly Beans’ sold from March, 2012 onwards.

David Arnold, Marketing and Sales Director of Suttons Seeds, said: “We are thrilled to have raised £8,500 for Greenfingers through our promotional counter display unit.

“We’d like to thank the garden centres and retailers who helped us to support this worthy charity by placing our specially designed display units at till points in their stores.

“Nasturtium ‘Jelly Beans’ are a particularly popular variety and one of the easiest flowers to grow. They produce brilliant colours and look excellent in hanging baskets, tubs and borders.”

The fundraiser was held as part of Garden Re-Leaf Day, which is a nationwide initiative to encourage members of the horticultural industry to mark the start of the spring gardening season by organising events or activities. As well as creating awareness of gardening, one of the main aims of the day is to raise money for Greenfingers.

Sue Allen, from the Management Committee at Greenfingers, said: “It was a huge pleasure for Greenfingers to be presented with the cheque from Suttons Seeds. Without such support, Greenfingers would not be able to continue in its work of building much needed gardens for children’s hospices. 

“So much money can be raised by a company pledging the percentage of a sale. Suttons Seeds has raised a huge sum of money and brought the charity to the attention of thousands of gardeners in the country.”

Greenfingers was launched in November 1998 by a group of volunteers drawn from all sectors of the gardening industry.
The charity builds gardens for children with life-limiting illnesses in children’s hospices across the UK. It will create spaces for the whole family, so they can have fun, play and laugh away from the bedside, as well as having the space to rest, reflect and remember. To date, Greenfingers has created 39 gardens.

To find out more about Greenfingers, which has its office at Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, please call 01494 674 749 or visit www.greenfingerscharity.org.uk.