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What do we want to do?
What do we want to do?
Our mission is to ensure that fresh, wholesome food reaches those who are most in need.
These include food banks, homeless shelters, and low-income public sector professionals. By distributing a broad range of food items rich in vitamins, minerals, and other essential nutrients we aim to not only reduce hunger but improve wellbeing
Allotment Open Day – Everyone Welcome!
Allotment Open Day – Everyone Welcome!
📅 Date: Saturday 17th August 2025
🕐 Time: 13:00 – 16:00
📍 Location: Brotts Road, Normanton on Trent
Join us for an inspiring afternoon at our Allotment Open Day, where we’ll be showcasing the progress of our community growing spaces and sharing how they’re helping to support local foodbanks.
This is a relaxed, family-friendly event open to all, with plenty to see, learn, and get stuck into!
What to Expect:
What to Expect:
Guided tours of our allotment site
Get hands-on with planting, harvesting, and even painting our chicken coops
Learn about our growing projects and how you can do similar things at home
Meet the team behind the Yasmine McClory Foundation and find out how we’re tackling food insecurity
Bring donations of seeds, gardening tools, or non-perishable food items to help support our work
Whether you’re an experienced gardener, a complete beginner, or just curious about what we do – we’d love to see you there.
How Local Businesses Can Get Involved
How Local Businesses Can Get Involved
We welcome local businesses who want to connect with the community or explore partnership opportunities.
Come along and find out how your organisation could contribute to this growing movement.
Help Us Grow
Help Us Grow
Every donation—whether it’s a packet of seeds, a watering can, or a tin of soup—helps us make a bigger impact.
Find Us
Find Us
Help us raise money for our 2025-2026 projects!
Help us raise money for our 2025-2026 projects!
Over the next year, we want to increase the amount and variety of produce that we can provide to the community by growing mushrooms, keeping bees and improving the soil we’re planting in. We also want to support the natural ecosystem by creating enriching habitats for bees and safe spaces for owls.
Mushrooms
Mushrooms
Growing fresh mushrooms is a relatively low maintenance activity that can produce multiple spawns for up to two years after the initial work is done. These mushrooms can then be donated to local food banks and shelters, providing a versatile and vitamin-rich ingredient for meals. Mushrooms can be grown from plugs (wooden dowels inoculated with mushroom mycelium) inserted into drilled holes in logs, covered with wax, with the logs then stacked and monitored for mushrooms fruiting. While we have plenty of logs for this system, we need to purchase several mushroom plugs to launch this project, costing approximately £100.
Owls
Owls
Owls are natural predators of common pests and help to keep them away from crops, meaning we have more left to donate to the community. This also enables farmers and local growers like us to reduce or completely avoid the use of chemical pesticides on crops. Unfortunately, a lack of nesting sites can lead owls to abandon these areas. We plan to install 1-2 nesting boxes to provide a safe space for these birds of prey to stay, while also supporting the growth of our crops. Ideally, nest boxes should be mounted onto trees where existing foliage can provide additional shelter. However, we do not have any large trees on our allotment so will need to install telegraph poles for these boxes to be mounted on. The cost of these nesting boxes plus telegraph poles would be approximately £120.
Bees
Bees
Beekeeping will enable us to produce honey to donate to local food banks and shelters, providing an antioxidant-rich energy source to be used as a natural sweetener. Excess honey can also be sold to raise funds for our other projects and help a wider community. Beekeeping is a time-consuming and expert-level farming activity. To maximise efficiency and safety, alongside consulting expert beekeepers, we will need an easy-to-maintain hive that minimises danger and disturbance to the colony when collecting honey. These hives will cost approximately £1000.
Developing a nectar cafe will provide our bees with a guaranteed space to harvest nectar, while also supporting the local population of bees and other pollinators. Bees play a vital role in supporting the ecosystem by pollinating a wide variety of plants, each with their own benefits. For example, flowers and other wild plants provide natural shelter to a range of animal species. Bees also help to pollinate crops, which in turn leads to bigger and better yields at harvest. We have plenty of space to use for our nectar cafes but need to purchase appropriate wildflower seeds, in total costing approximately £20.
Soil & Raised Beds
Soil & Raised Beds
We have been lucky enough to be able to obtain local allotment spaces to grow our crops in, with much of our materials donated or obtained at a reduced rate. However, since these spaces and materials have been previously used by other people for varying purposes, there is lots of room to improve our soil and planting spaces which in turn can improve the quality and quantity of crops we can produce.
Firstly, we have several raised beds that have rotted and need rebuilding over the winter. We will need to purchase new materials to rebuild these beds so that we can plant in them.
Secondly, lots of our donated soil has come from building sites so contains debris that isn’t ideal for plant growth.
Over the last year, we have been saving a treasure-trove of natural resources to combine into our own homemade compost, including:
Grass clippings and greenery rich in nitrogen
Chicken manure rich in nitrogen
Branches and brown leaves rich in carbon
Egg shells rich in calcium
By filtering our donated soil to remove large stones and other elements that don’t support crop growth, and combining it with our homemade compost, we can provide a super fertile soil for our crops leading to better yields. To facilitate these we will need to hire a large soil trommel to sift out the debris. This combined with the materials for the beds will cost approximately £250.
Christmas Fundraiser to Support Local Families in Need
Christmas Fundraiser to Support Local Families in Need
This Christmas, we are launching a heartfelt fundraiser to bring joy and warmth to families who are struggling during the festive season. With up to 1 in 6 families across the UK facing difficulties affording even basic food, we feel more compelled than ever to step up and make a difference.
Our goal is to raise funds for festive food gifts, such as selection boxes and biscuit tins, which we will donate to local food banks. These special items can help make the season feel a bit more festive for families who might otherwise go without. We believe that every family should have the opportunity to celebrate and create happy memories at this time of year, regardless of their circumstances.
We are working with Bassetlaw Food Bank and local Trussell Trust food banks to distribute these festive treats to as many families as possible in the Nottinghamshire area. Our goal is to raise £300 which will enable us to secure at least 60 Selection Boxes and 60 Biscuit Tins. Our fundraiser will be active throughout November & December, culminating in deliveries that ensure these gifts are available in time for Christmas Day.
This campaign is rooted in the spirit of community and compassion. We invite everyone to join us, whether through donations to their local foodbank, donations to our fundraiser, or simply spreading the word. Together, we can bring smiles, warmth, and hope to those who need it most during this special time of year.
Donate and see our fundraising progress!
Fact finding mission to Bassetlaw Foodbank
Fact finding mission to Bassetlaw Foodbank
Great fact finding mission at Bassetlaw Food Bank!
During our visit to Bassetlaw food bank, we had the opportunity to witness first hand the important work being done to support individuals and families in need. The food bank plays a crucial role in providing essential food items to those facing food insecurity, ensuring that no one in the community goes hungry whilst educating people in the process. We love how by combining bee keeping and growing their own produce, they are providing a sustainable and rewarding way to support the community.
We, at The Yasmine McClory Foundation, are looking forward to starting our journey into growing fresh produce to supply to local food banks and homeless shelters.
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