RNLI to apply for RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) will be one of the first two charity beneficiaries of a new scheme, Project Giving Back, established to enable charities and not-for-profit organisations to create a garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Project Giving Back will provide the funds and support required for the RNLI to apply for a prestigious Main Avenue Show Garden at the 2022 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Being part of the show will give the RNLI a great opportunity to raise funds, recruit new supporters and share its lifesaving stories with the huge audience which visits RHS Chelsea each year.
Jayne George, RNLI fundraising, marketing and media director, says: “This is such a wonderful opportunity for the RNLI and we are incredibly grateful to Project Giving Back and the RHS for making it happen. This has been a dreadful year for everyone but there is something very hopeful about planning and creating a garden, and we are excited to be able to share that with our volunteers, supporters and the general public.
“We can’t say yet who will design our garden or what it will look like, but I am certain that it will honour our charity’s long history of saving lives, inspire our next generation of lifesavers and supporters and, of course, bring some much-needed beauty and colour to all our lives.”
Project Giving Back is the vision of two private individuals who want to offer a significant springboard to a wide range of charitable causes whose work has suffered during the global Covid-19 pandemic. Established and emerging designers, landscapers and nurseries will be teamed with a range of UK charitable organisations to help raise awareness of the diverse and varied way they support people, plants and the planet.
In 2022, 2023 and 2024, Project Giving Back will support 14 charitable organisations each year with funding and experienced advice to create a range of gardens at the show.
The RNLI joins Mind as the first charity beneficiaries of Project Giving Back. A third application will be for a garden inspired by BBC series Blue Peter, which has encouraged children to enjoy gardening and the natural world for over 60 years. The three applicants will be teamed with established garden designers – to be announced later this year – to ensure their opportunity to exhibit at the show is as high-profile as possible.
“I feel honoured to have been asked to help establish this ground-breaking support scheme, working alongside experienced industry colleagues to bring Project Giving Back to life,” says Mark Fane, advisory panel member for Project Giving Back and MD of Crocus. “We relish the challenge of supporting a diverse range of charities, designers, landscapers and nurseries over the next three years to help tell the incredible stories of many amazing charities.”
If the application to exhibit is successful, this will be the first time the RNLI has had a Show Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. In 1999, to celebrate its 175th anniversary, the charity had a stand in the show’s Floral Marquee, funded and designed by Gateshead Borough Council. And in 2003, the RNLI was the chosen charity to benefit from the show, with money raised funding an Atlantic 85 B-Class lifeboat, later named Chelsea Flower Show by BBC newsreader Sophie Raworth at an event in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The lifeboat is still operating as one of the charity’s training boats.
