Dave Richards

Collective Member at RISC & Garden Tutor and Designer

Dave is a member of the RISC Collective and designs school and community gardens for F4F. He was key in establishing Reading International Solidarity Centre, and in rooting Food4Families as a project within it. He helped with the design and build of our award winning Roof Garden at London Street. He is responsible for education outreach on the roof garden and delivers training for teachers who want to maximise the educational value of the outdoor classroom. 

Michele Atkins

Garden Tutor at Whitely GrowAllot and Project Coordinator for Veg4Reading

Michele has worked for Food4Families on and off since 2010. During that time she has helped build some of our gardens, put up several of the poly tunnels, and delivered gardening workshops with hundreds of people.

She has been a leading garden tutor at several of our school and Community Gardens. She is currently a garden tutor at Whitley Growallot.

She has a love of nature and gardening and enjoys helping people discover the excitement of growing their own fruit and veg, from sowing the seeds, caring for the plants through to harvesting the produce. When she isn't gardening she can be seen leading Bikeability sessions for kids, and of course in her own garden.

Ricky Josey

Garden Tutor at Katesgrove Allotment

Reading born Ricky is a lifelong environmental awareness promoter, being the community lead for Reading Rescue and our tutor for the Katesgrove Community Association allotment at Waterloo Meadows. He has been influential in establishing and supporting local community gardens in West Reading and also has his own allotment.

Francis Serjeant

Garden Tutor across Reading

Francis joined Food4Families in 2018 as a holiday relief gardener and has never looked back. He is not based at a specific community garden but leads sessions around all our sites periodically.

He came to the project from working a stint in the gardening section of Reading Homebase after many years of commuting as a London librarian. He supplements his gardening knowledge gained at Homebase with a long and keen love of gardening together with active involvement as a member of Caversham Horticultural Society.

Queenesh D'Silva

Garden Tutor in Caversham

Queenesh is a garden tutor at The Weller Centre in Caversham, and Gosbrook Garden at St Johns in Caverhsham. As a local resident and keen gardener, she is passionate about engaging families in Caversham in gardening. She learnt to garden as a little one with her grandparents and has never looked back.

She is trained in Vegetable Growing and enjoys helping familes to access gardening for the first time. Apart from food growing, she is also passionate about Anthiruims (Houseplants) and succulents. She has about 25 different varieties!

Sheila Casey

Garden Tutor in Whitley

Sheila has spent three years at Horticultural College and twenty years in the horticultural industry culminating in teaching long term horticulture to clients who were unemployed, family allotments and allotment gardening for Food4Families.

Charlotte Allchin

Garden Tutor, Forest School Leadet & Outdoor Practitioner at Southcote

Charlotte joined Food4Families in March 2018 as a garden tutor. She is passionate about the opportunity it offers to connect people of all ages with their local community growing spaces.

With over a decade of teaching experience and her day to day role as a Forest School Leader, Outdoor Play Practitioner and Outdoor Learning trainer, she relishes the many opportunities Food4Families allows to encourage gardening for wildlife, biodiversity as well as sustainable use of water and soil. 

Naomi German

Garden Tutor in Erleigh Community Garden

Naomi started working for Food4Families in 2016 after helping to set up Erleigh Road Community Garden on an area of unused land close to where she lives. She has always loved gardening and is a keen advocate of urban community gardening as it means that even if you have limited outdoor space you can still grow fruit and veg, observe nature, meet other people and enjoy being outdoors in a beautiful green space. 

Beth Scott

Garden Tutor at Lavender Place and Southcote 

Beth is the garden tutor at Lavender Place. She was key to setting up Lavender place and has developed a thriving community there over the years as a local resident. She runs courses across Southcoet Garden and Lavender place for adults. In her spare time she loves knitting with friends!