Latest News

Thank you to the wonderful members of the Wonky WI - St Leonards on Sea for their continued support. Recently a couple of their members visited us at The Firs and handed over a donation of £200 to support the work of our amazing gardening volunteers who look after our Secret Garden. Their kindness and generosity will help ensure our 'not so secret' garden can remain the beautiful sanctuary that it is, for all the families and children that use it.

As part of this week's HAF some of us took part in the Butterfly Conservation Big Butterfly Count 2026 We spent 15 minutes in the Forest School area counting the butterflies we saw and recorded them here. You have until the 9th August to take part and we really do encourage you to because we loved it!

We want to share another thank you to Yuri, our most recent Little Gate Farm Future Ready student placement. Yuri worked with Isaac around the site, ensuring it was tidy and safe for our visitors, he also undertook the daily inspections of our equipment. During his time here he built a fabulous bug hotel to take back to the farm. The students have now started their Summer break but if you want to know more about hosting a placement or two, click the link below. We really do r

We are pleased to share that our MUGA here at The Firs is now back to being unlocked and open at all times. However, should more vandalism occur then we will have to return to having it closed during the evenings and weekends. Thank you to everyone who messaged us regarding the damage, your kind words meant a lot.

We are super excited to share we are one of the chosen charities for next years Hastings & Rother Business Expo. Thank you so much to the Your Office Events Team for choosing us and continuing to support our charity, it really does mean a lot. Click here to visit the Expo's Facebook page. Click here to book your space.

Unfortunately, due to repeated damage to our MUGA surface from Escooters and bikes, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily keep our MUGA closed during the evenings and weekends when our staff team are not on site. It will only be unlocked for those groups that have pre-booked. It is such as shame to have to do this, however as a small charity we cannot afford the repeated repairs required due to damage from Escooters, bikes and general misuse of the MUGA. If you w

Our Secret Garden is looking wonderful and we want to share our thanks to several supporters for their recent donations. Thank you to the Fairlight Gardening Club for their recent donation of Brassica, Tomatoes, Sugar Snaps and other vegetables for us to plant in our Secret Garden. The Club have been so supportive over the years and our Secret Garden most certainly wouldn't look like it does without them, they have donated so many of the plants we get to enjoy year round. Tha

Bookings are now open for our Summer HAF (Holiday Club) provision here at The Firs. Our HAF provision is funded through East Sussex County Council and they set the dates and criteria for accepting young people. We can confirm that this summer we have the following dates available: • Monday 27th - Wednesday 29th July • Monday 10th - Wednesday 12th August Bookings for these will open at 8am, as set out below: • Monday 8 June – for FSM (free school meals) families – all non-FSM

We are very lucky to have a dedicated team of volunteers here at EFT, all of whom work hard to support the work we do. This Volunteers Week we want to share our thanks and appreciation for each and every one of them and you can 'meet' a few of them below:

The team have captured some great shots over the last few week. We are very fortunate to be based at such a beautiful site and to be able to escape the office and enjoy some time outside in nature.

We are so grateful to be a part of the Co-op Local Community Fund this year. Co-op members can choose to support EFT so that we can receive a share of £5m and continue our much needed Talking in the Tipi sessions in local primary schools next academic year. You can become a member and support us by clicking the link: https://membership.coop.co.uk/causes/96336 Thank you to everyone that has chosen us already.

We are so grateful for all the support we receive from our community throughout the year. We would like to thank the team over at Hastings Direct who not only donated Easter Eggs for all our HAF participants over Easter but also held a raffle and set up a JustGiving page, raising a wonderful £590 for us. Thank you all so much for your very kind and generous support, we really do appreciate it.

Thank you, The Firs community! A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our consultation survey on the proposed development at The Firs. Your feedback has been invaluable and is helping shape the future of the site. We’re pleased to share that, building on what we heard, we’ve now commissioned a specialist consultant to help us design a strong project brief. This will enable us to work in partnership with Hastings United to develop a clear, deliverable visio

We want to do a share our thanks and appreciation to Michael who very kindly donated some much needed compost/soil improver for the Secret Garden following our call out for donations of compost. This will be used for mulching and improving/loosening up the heavy soil on the terraced bed. Thank you so much Michael for your generosity and support.

We want say thank you to Alf and Lucy our Little Gate Farm Future Ready student placements for terms 3 and 4. You have both been amazing. Alf has been a great help to Isaac across the site, ensuring it is safe for everyone that uses it. During his time here Alf has helped to plant trees, undertaken litter picks across the site and the surrounding areas, completed equipment safety checks, marked our football pitches and even made a bug hotel! Lucy has been supporting the team

Our office will be closed this Easter weekend and the team will be enjoying some spring time off before we return for our Family Forest School and HAF sessions next week.

Congratulations to our volunteer Oliver who has recently received his Silver Volunteer Award. Oliver has been with us for nearly 2 years and has supported the team with our adult learning delivery and worked hard around the site with Isaac. He has even dipped his toes into supporting some of the young people we work with. Well done Oliver and thank you for all that you do.

We would like to thank our friends over at Parker Building Supplies for recently delivering another bundle of pallets for us to recycle and reuse here at The Firs.

We are excited to share that we have been successful in receiving funding to deliver HAF again this year during the Easter, Summer and Christmas holidays! These free sessions will be available to families who receive benefits-related free school meals. Bookings go live here at 8am on Monday 2nd March.

We want to do a big shout out to staff and students over at Christ Church school for choosing to support EFT at last terms mufti day! Rae, one of our Learning Coach and Mentors popped by to say thank you and Fiona, the schools Keyworker shared with us “we’re delighted to share that we raised £115.50 for this invaluable charity, who continue to deliver wonderful projects in our school and provide exceptional support for our children. Thank you to everyone who contributed!” 👏���