A volunteer champion has thanked us for our support after being shortlisted for a national award for steps she is taking to enhance the environment in her local community.
Deb Hoskin, 59, of Millbrook, has partnered with us to spearhead a number of volunteering projects designed to use the environment to develop learning opportunities for young people.
The mother of three and grandmother, Deb formed a charity along with a colleague which seeks to provide therapeutic and learning opportunities through horticulture.
The charity, which Deb founded in 2012, is Horticultural Therapy Trust (HTT) and it has gone from strength to strength working alongside social prescribers, schools, Harbour Pathways, Rethink, and supporting agencies including LiveWest.
Deb Hoskin said: “Being with nature and the environment, I began to recognise, is especially meaningful and beneficial for people finding challenges in life. Volunteering can also be a route to other things, and you might end up doing things you never thought you would do, that’s what happened to me.
“When we started the charity, we found real changes in recovery that people hadn't been able to perhaps find with mental health services and medication alone and it was really inspiring to me. It’s also demonstrably great for health and wellbeing. I was learning as I was going along, but really working in what I would now call a very person-centred way.”
After over 25 years of volunteering, Deb had been working for a big national charity for a few years which suddenly went bankrupt, but it was from there she decided she had to carry it on and support others.
She was able to do this through launching HTT which offers various inclusive projects supporting adults from all backgrounds and cultures towards improved wellbeing especially those challenged by long-term and severe mental health issues.
Her charity has a strong link between holistic horticulture and achieving net zero with holistic horticulture helping to maintain biodiversity and to remove the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.
It has also developed from an allotment and provides participants with an art shed, photography cameras and some woodworking. Sessions are three times per week and are participant-led and are held at its Penlee Valley Allotment site in Plymouth.
Deb added: “It was really shocking that it closed completely overnight so I said to the person next to me ‘I'm going to have to find a way to keep it going’ and that's where starting the charity happened. I have never done anything like that before, I'd never set up a charity.
“When it started, we had no funding and no money. Someone personally lent the money to rent the allotment for the first year, which was about £230. The size of 10 allotments, from Plymouth city council.”
Deb has been supported by us as she embarks on a number of projects. She has planted trees with children in the community, establishing a tree-nursery, orchard, and an after-school environment club at Millbrook Primary School, Millbrook in Cornwall.
Thanks to funding given through our Community Grant, Deb was able to help children in a therapy project she ran at Marlborough Street Primary School in Devonport, to create wildlife gardens, a pond, hedgerow and much more.
She has also created a community orchard with residents at our Liskeard Foyer and carried out gardening projects at our foyers in Plymouth and Bodmin.
She also took part in the annual Harfest green event to helping establish a community Permaculture Plot which is all about sustainable gardening techniques and skill-sharing.
This charity work along with Deb’s other achievements have given her recognition as she has been nominated for Tenant or Resident Contribution to Sustainable Living at the Unlock Net Zero awards.
Deb Hoskin said: “I think pretty much like everyone my first response was to feel quite 'shy', but I’ve learnt over the years it’s not about me, it’s about the sharing of those stories and although I put in the effort and recognise my part in it, I’m grateful to be doing what I’m doing.
“Being shortlisted is a way of sharing my work so it’s made me reflect on that so perhaps this award is a recognition of a journey.”
Deb also runs a four-hour weekly counselling service based at Plymouth Foyer which provides accommodation and support for 16-25-year-olds on the brink of homelessness.
There’s also currently a project involving 16–19-year-old asylum-seekers. Deb’s most recently helped launch a project to include people who are terminally ill with cancer working with the Mustard Tree Clinic, run by the NHS for people with cancer.
Deb added: “It is through LiveWest staff support that I was able to create a community orchard and vegetable and flower growing with residents.
“I would like to say a huge thank you to LiveWest for many areas of support to do what I do over the years. Particularly Mai, who in 2006 partly set me on my path, through supporting me in the voluntary work I did locally on the LiveWest housing estate where I live, to be able to plant the trees around the housing edges as a now fully growing woodland of biodiversity.
“With so many people experiencing and suffering from mental health and services just can’t cope. And so, what we do is we're here and we're most often supporting and facilitating people who arrive in crisis, and they don’t know where to turn to.
“We have become more and more of a lifeline more so over the last four years. We’re just grateful to be here actually, we couldn’t do it without valuable volunteer support nor without the kind funders.
“Volunteering is brilliant and will always give something back to the person. Volunteering will mean something different to each person but it’s recognising many projects, charities, and community things like this wouldn't be able to run without volunteers.”
Mai Evans, our Community Connector, said: “Deb has inspired me and does lots to give back within her immediate community. Deb has helped organise and been on many climate change justice marches in both Plymouth and London. She has been tirelessly campaigning for the environment in her gentle but tenacious way over all these years despite two frozen shoulders since December 2021.
“She has done so much for different agencies but in particular for LiveWest, I’ve enjoyed working with her and we really appreciate her giving back to people within our communities, we are grateful for her impressive work ethic, and she is an inspiration to others.”
