By Phil Nichols & Sam S

The Farm adopts a social enterprise model to help generate much needed income. Part of our strategy includes facilitating paid volunteering days for organisations and companies, to help raise funds to subsidise our educational programmes and the running costs of the Farm. These team building days are also integral to supporting us ​to maintain our 1.3 acre site.

Since the easing of lockdown restrictions, we have been able to welcome back familiar organisations who have been volunteering at the Farm for many years. This includes Salesforce, Standard Charter​ed, Equistone, Samsara, and Nuveen​, among others.

Many of the teams who come to volunteer are based in the nearby City of London and new partnerships have been forged this year with staff from The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), Peel Hunt LLP, ​ISG, IFF Research, Ascential, and The Worshipful Company of Actuaries. ​In addition, we work closely with The East London Business Alliance (ELBA), who help identify potential ​partners who might want to volunteer with us.

We also led our largest group ever recently, with 70 staff from The Wise Group.

Since April, we have welcomed 23 teams and over 400 individuals – who have given over 2,500 hours of invaluable support to help us manage and improve the Farm for the benefit of the community.

One of ​the new teams we have started working with this year has been global finance and insurance company AIG.

David Buckle, who organised the day for his colleagues writes:

After eighteen months of working from home - separated from our colleagues - the Spitalfields City Farm challenge was the perfect way to reunite the AIG risk team.

We were struck at how wonderful the farm is. Many were surprised that such a large, beautiful and tranquil facility existed so close to the hustle and bustle of the City.

After a brief tour of the farm, jobs were assigned: gardening, painting, clearing, building fences - they had plenty of work lined up for us!

The city farm team are passionate about their work and this rubbed off on us as we got stuck in with gusto. The sun was shining and everyone seemed happy to be there. It was a great opportunity to catch up with old colleagues and make some new friends along the way. Spending time with work colleagues away from the office is a great way to get to know them better.

A delicious, healthy lunch was provided by the farm caterer, made with fresh produce sourced from the farm. After lunch, new jobs were assigned it was back to work.

At the end of the day, we downed our tools and took stock of what we had achieved during our fantastic day on the farm.