BAM Construction Volunteers Help Refresh Warwick Hospital's Sunshine Garden

We were delighted to welcome a fantastic team of volunteers from BAM Construction to Warwick Hospital, who generously gave up their time to help us refresh and rejuvenate the Sunshine Garden.

We originally created the garden in 2022 outside the Thomas Ward of Warwick Hospital, providing a peaceful outdoor space where staff, patients and visitors can step away from the clinical environment and enjoy the restorative benefits of nature. Since its creation, the garden has become a valued sanctuary for wellbeing, offering a place for reflection, relaxation and connection.

This latest volunteering day builds on a long-standing partnership between Forest of Hearts and BAM Construction. Over the years, BAM has supported several of our hospital garden projects, including the creation of the original Garden of Wellbeing at Stratford-upon-Avon Hospital. More recently, BAM helped create the beautiful wooden gazebos at the new Garden of Wellbeing, providing sheltered and shaded spaces where people can sit, relax and enjoy the garden throughout the year.

The team of nine volunteers threw themselves into the garden refresh project, making an incredible difference in just one day. They rolled up their sleeves to give the garden structures and benches a fresh coat of paint, helping to brighten the space and protect them for years to come. They also filled and planted a number of raised bed planters, including new black recycled plastic planters donated from a previous project, with a wonderful variety of evergreen and seasonal plants, alongside hundreds of spring bulbs that will provide colour, interest and enjoyment throughout the year.

As part of the refresh, the team painted the garden's distinctive hexagonal wooden raised beds, carried out extensive weeding and general garden tidying, mowed the lawn, and installed a selection of beautiful garden art pieces created by members of our Green Therapy programme. These unique artworks added colour, creativity and personality to the garden while showcasing the talents of local people involved in our wellbeing projects.

We would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone from BAM Construction for their hard work, enthusiasm and commitment throughout the day, and to Mark Batchelor, Emma Tombs and Phil Eves for their support in organising the event with us. We are also incredibly grateful to E H Smith for their generous donation of materials, including topsoil, paint and paint brushes, which played a vital role in helping us complete the project and maximise the impact of the day. Together, their efforts have helped breathe new life into this much-loved hospital garden and demonstrate the positive impact that corporate volunteering can have on community spaces.