Beyondly support YDMT to restore nature through community
The Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) is a small charity whose work helps to conserve and restore the precious habitats, landscapes and wildlife of the Yorkshire Dales.
Each year, Beyondly donate 5% of their net profit to selected charities, helping to create a better, fairer, and sustainable world for all. In 2024, as part of this initiative, Beyondly donated £25,000 to YDMT. This funding is enabling YDMT to deliver their Seed to Sapling project, which aims to safeguard local woodlands and increase biodiversity, by educating and empowering communities to grow native saplings from local provenance seed. As well as the positive environmental impact, the project also has a strong community focus and will help to increase wellbeing and encourage local people to come together to make a positive impact.
Since the start of the year, YDMT has made significant progress supporting growing schemes, across their Clapham, Malham, Crosby Ravensworth and Swaledale sites, to make a start in the planting of their saplings.
The project has also supported two trainees at YDMT, who have recently completed the yearlong programme and developed the valuable skills, experience and confidence to succeed and grow in the sector. The trainees laid a hedge along the wall of the Clapham nursery to create a habitat for an abundance of wildlife, as well as a three-stem wide hedge around the site which contains a range of plant species. The trainees’ work also included teaming up with The National Trust and Natural England to collect purple, tea leaved and bay willow. These were then used by YDMT at their willow cutting events in Clapham, where around 300 willow cuttings were potted and are now thriving and growing at their Clapham nursery.
One of the trainees reflected on their traineeship with YDMT and the significant impact it’s had on their career development, which has subsequently supported them to attain a new role in Canada as a caving guide:
“The last year has honestly been the happiest year of my life so far – for many reasons, including my time at YDMT which has obviously been a big part of my life for the last year. Fun fact that not many people know - it was my DREAM to work at YDMT for over a year before I got this traineeship.
The traineeship has opened up so many doors that I thought were closed to me, and given me an enormous amount of opportunities that have helped me to learn and grow as a person. I’m sure everything I’ve gained over the course of the traineeship will benefit me for years to come.”
Beyondly is thrilled to have played a part in enabling this successful initiative in the local community. For more information about Beyondly’s Fund for Change or how to apply, please visit Beyondly Fund for Change.
The Clapham nursery