We are Little Wild Things, a community organisation based in Charlbury, West Oxfordshire.

What do we do?

We run regular woodland sessions for pre-school children to attend through local nurseries or with their parents. Activities change each week and might include bug hunting, mud painting or building pixie gardens. We’ve been running since June 2014 and before lockdown had over 150 children joining us for woodland sessions each week. We employ local people, have local volunteers and work with 6 pre-schools, one school and hundreds of local families.

Why are we raising money?

Earlier this year we were sadly informed it would no longer be possible for us to use the woodland we had been adventuring in for the last 6 years. Without a woodland little wild things cannot exist and so, since April, we’ve been frantically searching for a new place to call home.

We are super excited to say that the local Cornbury Estate have saved the day by offering a patch of their beautiful woodland for us to work from in future. This generous and wonderful support will allow our small community organisation to survive and continue providing inspiring outdoor adventures for local children.

We are aiming to be back playing in the woods by mid-September but before then we need to prepare the site for use by children and their families, ensuring the woodland is safe and ready for little feet.

Before opening we need to:

• Survey the site and undertake a detailed tree risk assessment (cost: £1527).

• Complete the tree safety work identified by the site survey (approx. £1500) .

• Create a hardstanding area for parking cars (approx. £1200)

• Install a fence on the roadside (approx. £500).

• Build a wooden platform for the yurt to sit on; construct a log store; create a compost toilet; clear and prepare the ground under the trees for all our adventures. We saved a lot of wood and other bits from our old site and will be sourcing most of the rest for free. However, there will still be bits and bobs to buy such as roofing felt for the log store, some replacement wood for the platform, screws and lots of biscuits for our volunteers! (approx. £200).

We know it’s a lot to ask in these uncertain times but any donation you can make will be hugely appreciated. We will be eternally grateful, and you will be doing your bit to ensure the survival of our small business and the blissful muddiness of many, many local children.

We want to be making mud pies and racing snails for many years to come and are desperate to grab this opportunity to save Little Wild Things, so that we can continue to get children outside, and help them grow up interested in and respectful of nature.

So please help us by donating whatever you can spare, by sharing our fundraising campaign and by spreading our exciting news far and wide! Every penny really will help, so enormous thanks in advance.

We are Christine Donaldson and Charlotte Hansford and can be contacted on 07703121715 or at littlewildthings@outlook.com . You can also find out more about what we do and enjoy some pictures of happy, muddy children by visiting our website or instagram page.