How we've helped Growing Links

Growing Links is a lot of things, for a lot of people. Founded in 2012, the group aims to bring communities together to grow, celebrate and eat, whilst increasing wellbeing as well as access to locally grown food.

Primarily serving West Penwith through their head office in Penzance, the group’s founder, Lynne Dyer, now works with a permanent staff of 14 and a team of over 200 volunteers across projects such as a community garden, hot meal service for the homeless, and a food bank program for families who require such support.

Growing Links are in a period of transition, at present, with their current location to be transformed into a day centre, allowing people to come and seek support and be directed to service providers who can help.

“In terms of what we do it’s primarily about skills and employability, but we also want to ensure that those we work with thrive in life. We know that not everybody is able to go out and get a job, but if we can bring people together and make them feel well and good that remains very important to us,” Lynne said.

Food is at the heart of what Growing Links do, with food hygiene training high on their list in terms of Skills Hub support. Working with the Skills Hub team, Lynne has lofty plans for Growing Links for the years to come.

“Cornish farmers who have promised us one million pounds worth of food if we can go and pick it ourselves, so that’s something that will be a priority for us. On top of this we want to upskill the community around here through permaculture training, healthy cooking workshops, gardening and design, all of this with the aim of giving the community some extra knowledge,” Lynne said.

Want to help the team at Growing Links out? Drop them a line via their contact details below.

The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Skills Hub from October 2017 - June 2023 was part funded by the European Social Fund and match funded by Cornwall Council and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership. The project  received £2,885,993 of funding from the European Social Fund as part of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme in England.