Penrose Roots #LettuceBeKind campaign for mental health awareness week
With lockdown and and social distancing measures in place, Penrose Roots in Luton got creative with their annual Mental Health Awareness week this year by placing lettuces all across the area with kind messages attached.
For the past 4 years, to mark Mental Health Awareness Week, Penrose Roots in Luton have put on an annual Walk and Talk event; a leisurely walk around the area with service users and local partners to discuss the important topic of mental health in a more relaxed and open way.
The theme for 2020 Mental Health Awareness Week was “Kindness” which plays very close to the heart of all that attend their various projects. To mark the occasion, Penrose Roots wanted to create a campiagn to share kindness at a distance to connect the community at a time where people are physically disconnected.
From that, the #LettuceBeKind Campaign was born. The team of staff and volunteers got to work to plant up 50 lettuce seeds to grow on and nurture into something that they could give out to the community.
By the 18th of May, the lettuces were fully grown, care labels had been created, and the team were ready to start to randomly placing the lettuces across Luton. Lettuces were placed in bus stops, parks and green spaces, on a few doorsteps and in various residential streets, all carrying the message:
“#LettuceBeKind” - perhaps the Roots to kindness can start with yourself, be kind to this lettuce and it will repay your kindness.
The campaign was a huge success, with many tweets and messages from excited community members who had found one of their lettuces. The campaign even got a mention on the BBC east twitter live update and they were invited to talk about the campaign on BBC 3 counties radio.
After the success of "LettuceBeKind", Penrose Roots will be following up the campaign with “Ketchupwithfriends” and “WorldPeasday” over the coming months. The simple campaign was a great gentle reminder that in these days of disconnect we have never been more connected.
You can watch more about the campaign here
Good to Grow is an online platform to support food growing in the UK, run by Sustain and Sustainable Food Places. The Good to Grow Network is all about getting people involved in their local community garden. You can register your garden to the Good to Grow Network for free to promote your garden locally to volunteers and other organisations, use the online Harvest-ometer and all the other functions and take part in co-ordinated events such as Good to Grow Day.
25/06/2020
