Ways to Help

Just over half of our costs are covered by the Local Authority, we must fundraise for the rest.

On average, this works out as just over £7,000 per student, per year and provides the specialist teaching, therapeutic programmes, animal care and rural craft activities that keep the farm running and the students thriving.

Donate

Your gift will help Pennyhooks:

Maintain the animals and facilities that give students real, meaningful work every day.
Provide materials for woodwork, crafts and horticulture projects that build confidence and skills.
Fund experienced teaching and support staff who guide each young person’s learning and development.
Keep the farm’s 100 acres of pasture and conservation land safe and in good heart for the students, cattle and wild creatures that live here.

How your donation could help each week to make our work possible:

£10 helps to purchase ingredients for the students’ baking.
£25 feeds the goats — gentle animals that give students purpose and joy.
£100 provides tools, seeds, and materials for farm, woodwork and garden training.
£150 keeps the donkeys warm and well.
£250 looks after the buildings for the students, making sure they’re happy and comfortable at work.
£500 provides vital one-to-one support for a new student learning to work at the farm.
Every contribution, large or small, helps ensure that Pennyhooks can continue its life-changing work; that its animals and land are cared for, and that the autistic adults and young people who attend continue to find stability and self-worth through meaningful daily work.

Share your Skills & Volunteer

Volunteers come to us from many places, either as individual or as groups. We have several individuals whose regular presence in our lives makes an enormous difference, in many special ways, to the wellbeing of the farm, staff and students by helping out on the farm at weekends; using woodwork skills to make ‘kits’ for the students to assemble (e.g. for our reindeer); helping in a variety of roles on Open Days and sale events; offering specialist help from their own knowledge base for business planning and conservation; and by creating wonderful photographic records, and much more.

We are also very grateful for regular help from organisations to carry out jobs that may be too much for us to achieve by ourselves such as painting, decorating and major garden tidy-ups before our events. We receive regular support from Nationwide, the Coop and Serco.

We also much appreciate one off volunteer visits such as from Vodafone, Zurich, Quilter and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Agricultural Mortgage Company to paint the interiors of our buildings, plant hedges and erect fencing.

We are now welcoming a new group of volunteers who ask us for training and reciprocate by sharing their own skills with us. We have had visitors from Greece and Slovenia who have come to volunteer their time and skills whilst learning about our approach to autism summed in our training course (TIARA): The InterAction between the Rural environment and Autism.

A wide range of skills is needed to support the ongoing work of the Trust:

Gardening
Woodwork
Animal Care (out of hours)
Conservation (e.g. hedge planting and continuing care of hedges)
Tidying for and helping out on Open Days
Painting and Decorating
Admin (e.g. publicity support)

Help to Fundraise

We would like to extend our grateful thanks to all those who raise money in support of our work. Pennyhooks could not function without the kindness of others.

There are a number of different ways you can help to fundraise:

Attending a Pennyhooks event such as our Open Days, Plant Sales, Christmas Fayres or special concerts. Our students love seeing their beautiful creations – every bird box, planter and jar of jam – being sold to raise funds for the farm. The funds are vital but the sense of self-worth this generates for our students is even more valuable. Join our mailing list to make sure you hear about our next event.
Organising your own event to raise funds. Over the years we have been the grateful recipients of funds raised through concerts, bike rides, swims, mountain climbs and marathons, tractor runs, cake sales and coffee mornings. It seems there is no end to the creativity and energy of our supporters. Do get in touch if you have an idea – we would love to hear more.
Signing up to Easy Fundraising and raising money for us as you shop online. Search for Pennyhooks Farm Trust as your chosen organisation.
If you are local to the farm, consider ordering your eggs from us or buy them from Blacklands Organics in Shrivenham.