Heeley City Farm Needs You!

Heeley City Farm is open to volunteers from ages 8 to infinity! The Farm, our food-growing sites and the Energy Centre simply couldn’t run without the brilliant volunteers who come and work with us everyday so if you’d like to get involved please get in touch! The Farm is also happy to host corporate volunteer days.

If you’re aged 8 to 19 please also check out our Young People pages where you can find out more stuff that the Farm can offer YOU including work experience placements.

We involve our volunteers in helping us improve what we do from every angle of our work so your comments and suggestions are always welcome – but please be careful as you might be asked to put your idea into practice! We can also provide you with the training you need to master your task*. We will provide you with appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and can reimburse your travel expenses to and from the work-site*. We also offer 20% discount on food purchased in our community café.

We welcome people with all skill-levels* and want to hear from you if you’re interested in helping to deliver and develop any of our work:

Café – if you’re looking to get hands-on practical experience of working in the catering industry then look no further. Here you will learn a wide range of skills from kitchen basics to customer service to cooking with interesting vegetables grown on our sites by the Local Food Team and in the farm’s veggie garden by the Support Placements crew.

Garden Centre – want to show off your propagations from cuttings and seed, judge the onions at the Autumn Fair, re-skin a poly-tunnel, learn all about the pros and cons of growing in coir, or use your knowledge of perennials and garden design to help our customers create their ultimate garden? We want to hear from you.

Animals – they smell, they’re messy, they’re noisy, and we love ‘em! Come and help us work with them! We also need volunteers to help us raise cash to look after them.  Limited places in school term-time, and there might be a waiting list at the weekends.

The Farm Site – It’s a big one (over a hectare) and maintaining it is like painting the Forth Bridge. There are ALWAYS maintenance jobs to do so if you fancy learning fencing techniques like post-and-rail and post-and-wire, hedge-planting and hedge-laying, painting, planting, pruning, pollarding, coppicing, and even plumbing, whatever the weather we want your help!

Fundraising – the Farm always needs funds and we are very keen to hear from volunteers who can help. Whether you can shake a tin for donations at an event, conduct a Service-User consultation and analysis to inform bid-writing, or have experience in bid-writing or general fund-raising including campaigns and associated publicity, we want to hear from you.

Events – organising and delivering public events requires forward-planning, publicity design and distribution, and all hands-on-deck on the day. If you have experience or want to get it, contact us.

SYEC (Energy House) – An enterprise in itself with all the requirements of a small business that would love to use your skills! If you can help with the promotion, administration, reception or fundraising for South Yorkshire’s socially-conscious beacon of energy-efficiency, light us up!

Local Food Growing – Learn the mechanics and methods of organic food-growing at our tranquil but highly productive satellite sites (including Wortley Hall and Meersbrook Walled Gardens) and help turn the wheels of the Local Food Project into a revolutionary and scaleable social enterprise. See the poster below for contacts.

Heritage Projects – Do you have a passion for local history and even archaeology? At Wortley Hall Walled Garden (Oughtibridge) we’re researching the history of the place, the people, and the plants – local historians, archivists, and local people with knowledge and remembrances of the site are needed. Meanwhile here at the farm we’re creating an Iron Age Roundhouse and need willow-benders and mud-stompers! Publicists are also highly welcome for either project!

Office – Do you have skills in reception, administration or finance or would you like to get them? Join us in the office where we try to organise the daily mayhem of the Farm and all its enterprises! There’s a wide range of tasks involved including telephone and in-person reception, letter-writing, data entry and analysis, report-writing, minute-taking, cash-counting, and even business planning. If you have a keen eye for detail, love answering the phone, or want to further develop your organisational and planning skills, get in touch NOW!

Health and Social Care – We have a limited number of placements for those wanting to work with people with learning difficulties and disabilities (our Supported Placements programmes) and host regular placements from local colleges and the Sheffield Universities. If you have a real passion for work in this field please get in touch to help us to change people’s lives for the better forever. Places are limited so phone for a chat.

Youth Work – We have a limited number of placements for those wanting to work with young people and can host work experience placements for local colleges and Universities by arrangement.

Board of Directors – Charities like Heeley City Farm need a strong, dedicated and decisive team at the top underpinned by the wide skills-base of its members. If you know our work areas or have sound expertise in managing organisations or know about the legal, financial, strategic, and employment issues for charities and small to medium enterprises, we’d love to hear from you.

PS. The wonderful website you’re currently browsing was made and has been maintained for over ten years by one of our wonderful volunteers! Have a look here to see whodunnit!

* Click here to view further information re volunteering

^ top