Heath Hands' 25 years of volunteering on Hampstead Heath

Led by Bobby de Joia, a native of New York, and inspired by the work of the Central Park Conservancy, they got chatting with the Heath’s Rangers and reached an agreement with the then-superintendent to start getting the community involved in helping care for the Heath.

Over the past 25 years, things have evolved, with the charity growing and recruiting a fantastic staff team to lead some 250 members.

Running over 10 activities and volunteer sessions a week, Heath Hands works with thousands of people every year and contributes over 15,000 hours of volunteering at Hampstead Heath, Highgate Wood and Kenwood.

Karin Oleinikova looks back at 25 years of Heath Hands (Image: Heath Hands)

Conservation and garden maintenance remain at the core of our activities, but we have developed programmes to cover other areas.

Community outreach encourages wider participation in our green spaces, especially for those who may find it harder to take part.

Our learning and school programmes help people find out more about nature and wildlife in our green spaces, and an increasing area of focus is wellbeing.

We actively work with local healthcare providers to signpost people to beneficial activities in nature and run targeted activities such as health walks and nature mindfulness to improve health outcomes.

All of this work is done in close collaboration with our key partners, in particular the City of London Corporation and English Heritage, who manage Hampstead Heath and the Kenwood Estate, but also a whole range of local organisations.

To celebrate turning 25 we celebrated in the Kenwood House kitchen garden during Volunteers Week, and I want to say thank you to English Heritage for providing the amazing venue!

We also commissioned local filmmaker Matt Maran to make a short film – a beautiful celebration of the Heath and our work – do check it out on our website heath-hands.org.uk

• Karin Oleinikova is programme manager for Heath Hands.