Heritage Fund Grant for new evening volunteering programme secured
The Heart of England Forest is delighted to announce that it has been awarded funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to launch Afterhours Green Guardians, an innovative two-year evening volunteering programme designed to make conservation volunteering more accessible for working-age adults.
The programme will provide flexible volunteering opportunities outside traditional working hours, enabling more people to get involved in caring for the Forest's woodlands, meadows, wetlands, and other important habitats. Running from 2026 to 2028, the programme will offer practical conservation activities, heritage skills training and wildlife monitoring, helping volunteers develop new skills while making a meaningful contribution to nature recovery.
The funding, which is made possible thanks to National Lottery players, will support the engagement of more than 120 new volunteers and deliver over 4,000 hours of volunteer activity across the Forest. Participants will learn traditional countryside skills, gain a deeper understanding of the area's natural heritage, and play a direct role in protecting and restoring habitats across the historic Forest of Arden.
The programme builds on the success of a pilot evening volunteering initiative run by the charity, which demonstrated strong demand from people who are unable to volunteer during the day due to work, family, or caring commitments.
The Heart of England Forest is creating and conserving a vast, connected forest across Warwickshire and Worcestershire. The Forest will ultimately grow to be 12,000 hectares in size. To achieve this vision, the charity will plant 12 million trees. The Afterhours Green Guardians programme will help strengthen the volunteer community needed to support that vision for generations to come.
This project is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund is the largest funder for the UK’s heritage. Using money raised by National Lottery players we support projects that connect people and communities to heritage. Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. From historic buildings, our industrial legacy and the natural environment, to collections, traditions, stories and more. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.
