Rachael Hearn is a nursery teacher and fundraising coordinator at Quince Tree Day Nursery in Essex. Below she writes about why she grew a sunflower with children at the nursery.
We were doing a project at Quince Tree Day Nursery in Essex teaching the children about how things grow. We then decided to take part in a challenge to grow a sunflower and raise awareness about mental health which affects not just adults but children as well. The idea of the challenge was to grow a sunflower so that you learn how to nurture and look after something just like you should look after yourself.
We then came across The Big Sunflower Project that raises awareness about centronuclear and myotubular myopathy when looking up sunflower challenges on the internet to take part in for fundraising and thought it was a good idea to take part in this challenge as well so that we could teach the children how everyone is different and that’s ok.
We were so happy to watch our sunflower grow as it grew so big it was 9ft 2″ and it was sad when we had to dig it up but we managed to save the seeds that we found in the sunflower so that we can grow another one next year and take part in more sunflower challenges.
2022 was the twelfth year of The Big Sunflower Project with people taking part in the UK, Germany, Greece, Australia and the USA.
This year the project received a huge amount of support which began with a donation from Dynacure, a clinical-stage company focused on developing and commercialising novel therapies, to transform the lives of rare disease patients, with limited or no treatment options. As well as their generous funding, Dynacure also shared sunflower photos and stories on their social media pages, to help raise awareness of The Big Sunflower Project and of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy.
The project was featured in blog posts by Rare Revolution Magazine and Beacon For Rare Diseases.
As always many beautiful photos were received and these were shared across social media over the summer, raising awareness of the project and of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. If you grew sunflowers this summer but have not yet sent photos it is not too late. Photos can be sent by email or shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn using #TheBigSunflowerProject.
You can also share your sunflower growing story. Again, stories help the project raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy and evidence the impact of the project. You can read stories from previous projects below.
If you have grown sunflowers with the project this year and would be willing to share your story, please get in touch.
After a sunflower has flowered, its seeds can be harvested for planting again the following year. A single seed planted in the spring can produce many seeds in the autumn and these can be extracted from the seed head once a sunflower has dried out. If you have sunflowers that are now past their best, you can save the seeds for growing next summer or as food for wildlife over the winter. Firstly chop off the flower head and brush away the pollen, under which you will find your sunflower seeds, then leave the flower head to dry. You can learn more about harvesting sunflower seeds on the project website.
Although the project is now at end for this year in the UK, if you are in a part of the world that is about to get its summer, please consider buying a packet of seeds and growing a sunflower to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy.
And to everyone who has taken part in the project this year, a massive thank you. I look forward to growing sunflowers with you again in 2023.
Further information
Further information about the project can be found on here on the project website and on the project social media pages.
This time last year, I called time on the The Big Sunflower Project with a heavy heart. My little awareness project had got huge and the demand for seeds, applying for funding and distributing seeds all by myself, was at times overwhelming. However, as 2021 got underway, people began to contact me to say they still wanted to take part in the project and they were happy to buy their own seeds or plant seeds they had harvested. I could not have been more happy.
2021 was the eleventh year of The Big Sunflower Project. Participants old and new joined the project and some truly beautiful photos were shared on social media to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy.
If you took part in the project this year, thank you so very much, I hope you enjoyed growing your sunflowers as much I enjoyed looking at your photos and being part of the project community of sunflower growers. To date participants have joined the project from across the UK, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the USA, Costa Rica, Argentina, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Croatia, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Lithuania, Greece, Poland and in a first for the project this year, the Middle East.
Raising awareness
The aim of The Big Sunflower Project is to raise awareness of the rare neuromuscular conditions known as centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. One of the ways the project does this is by sharing photos, another by sharing participants stories on the project website and on social media. If you have grown sunflowers with the project this year and would be willing to share your story to help raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, please get in touch. You can read stories from past projects below.
If you grew sunflowers this summer but have not shared any photos it is not too late and these can still be shared on the project social media channels.
If you would like to learn about centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, you can read about the conditions below.
Could you grow a sunflower to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy? Taking part is easy.
1. Buy a packet of sunflower seeds.
2. Plant a seed in a sunny spot, water regularly and watch it grow.
3. Take a photo of your sunflower and share it on social media using #TheBigSunflowerProject.
If you have never grown a sunflower before but would like to give it a go, you can learn how below.
Want to learn more about The Big Sunflower Project? Further information about the project can be found on the project website and on the social media pages.
2020 was the tenth year of The Big Sunflower Project with people taking part in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Greece, the USA, Australia and the Philippines.
As always schools and nurseries received seeds. Other recipients included home educating families, children learning from home due to coronavirus, schools that remained open to the children of key workers, NHS hospitals and medical centres, brownies, a horticultural society, a charity that supports people recovering from homelessness and addiction, an allotment project for children and adults with additional support needs, a charity which works with people who have learning disabilities and a residential home for older people with dementia. This year seeds and small plants were also given away in our local neighbourhood to spread a little happiness during a time in which happiness has been in short supply.
Project map
This year 251 places were plotted on the project map which can be seen below – click a sunflower to learn more about the people growing sunflowers in that location.
In the news
The project received some lovely publicity over the last twelve months which can be read below and we are incredibly grateful to those who have taken the time to write about what we do.
We are also grateful to all the Clinical Commissioning Groups that promoted the project to their staff and on social media at the beginning of the year.
The Blakemore Foundation
In August, we were delighted to learn that we were to receive a £100 donation from the Blakemore Foundation, a charitable trust established by the Blakemore family to support good causes across A.F. Blakemore’s trading area (including the SPAR trading area.) Funding such as this is crucial to the work of The Information Point and The Big Sunflower Project, so we are hugely grateful to the Blakemore Foundation for their support.
Photos
Over 750 photos were received from 69 participants this year. Every photo received was posted on social media to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy and these can be viewed below.
All photos received are shared on our website and social media pages and are really important to us, as they help raise awareness of the project and of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. They also help evidence the impact of our work.
If you grew sunflowers this summer but have not yet sent photos it is not too late and we would still love to see these. Photos can be sent by email or shared on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using #TheBigSunflowerProject.
Harvesting sunflower seeds
After a sunflower has flowered, its seeds can be harvested for planting again the following year. A single seed planted in the spring can produce many seeds in the autumn and these can be extracted from the seed head once a sunflower has dried out. Want to try saving your own seeds? You can learn how here on the project website.
Each year we ask people who have taken part in The Big Sunflower Project to share their story. The stories help us to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy and again help when we apply for funding. You can read stories from previous projects below.
If you have grown sunflowers with the project this year and would be willing to write your story too, please get in touch.
This year the project celebrated its 10th anniversary – it has been a very different year to the one anticipated but we hope if you took part, you enjoyed growing your sunflowers and that they brought a little sunshine into the lives of those who grew the sunflowers and those who saw the photos.
Further information
Further information about the project can be found on here on the project website and on the project social media pages.
2020 is the tenth year of The Big Sunflower Project and a milestone event for the little project, which originally was only meant to last for one year.
Obviously, no one expected the coronavirus situation and in March seed distribution was suspended. We tentatively re-started in April and during late April and early May, were able to get some final batches of seeds safely in the post. Recipients included children currently home from school, schools that remained open to the children of key workers, a charity that supports people recovering from homelessness and addiction, a specialist worker for the Early Help and Prevention Service, an allotment project for children and adults with additional support needs, Enable Scotland (a charity which works with people who have learning disabilities), a residential home for older people with dementia and a hospital caring for a child with myotubular myopathy.
Our intention at the beginning of the year had been to distribute 300 packets of seeds and we now know of over 290 people participating in the UK, on the Isle of Man, France, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Australia and the Philippines, so we are feeling a tiny bit proud of ourselves for getting so close to our target at this difficult time. 238 places are currently plotted on the project map which can be viewed below. Click anywhere on the map to open it up and click a sunflower to learn about the people growing sunflowers in a particular location. If you are growing sunflowers but cannot see yourself on the map, please ask to be added. As always, we wholeheartedly welcome anyone who grows sunflowers to take part in the project, even if they did not obtain their sunflower seeds from us.
In addition to posting seeds out, seeing as we had been thrown a curve ball, we decided to do a few things differently this year too.
Earlier in the year the project received a large donation of vegetable seeds. During the first three months of the year, these were sent together with sunflower seeds, to anyone who applied to the project and advised they had an allotment or stated they wanted seeds for a gardening club but from late April onwards, we began to give away our sunflower and vegetable seeds locally and we planted dwarf sunflowers, peas, cucumbers and runner beans and gave small plants away too.
Secondly, we decided to send seeds to schools we knew were still open for the children of key workers. We thought being a small person with all this chaos going on right now, together with not being able to be with your friends and watching your parents go off to work each day must be quite a scary time, so decided to send a few surprise packages to schools, in the hope it would bring some cheer, make the children feel a bit special and give them something to look forward to – hopefully staff and parents would get some enjoyment from seeing the sunflowers too. It has been very lovely to hear from some of the schools and other recipients that the seeds and plants have been well received
ZNM-Zusammenstark! e.v.
This year the project is once again being joined by ZNM-Zusammenstark! e.v. growing sunflowers in memory of Emil, who was diagnosed with myotubular myopathy and sadly passed away in 2016. Founded in 2015, ZNM-Zusammenstark! e.v. is a German association for those affected by centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. Visit their website to read what they have to say about being part of The Big Sunflower Project.
The project has received some lovely publicity this year which can be read below and we are incredibly grateful to those who have taken the time to write about what we do.
If you are using your sunflower seeds for educational purposes, fundraising events or would like to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy at the place where you are growing your sunflowers, you can download flyers from the resources area of the website. You will also find resources for teaching children and to start conversations about equality and diversity.
The Big Sunflower Project is an initiative of The Information Point for Centronuclear and Myotubular Myopathy. The aim of the project is to raise awareness of the rare neuromuscular conditions known as centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, by sending seeds to people who have never heard of the conditions and requesting photos in return, which are shared in the Information Point newsletter and on the project social media pages, again raising awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. There is no charge for project seeds or the cost of postage, the project does however, welcome donations to ensure the future of the project and to enable seeds to be sent to as many people as possible each year. If you have donated for your seeds, thank you. If you would like to donate, you can learn more about how to do this below.
This year project seeds have been donated by Thompson and Morgan and Tamar Organics. Seeds were also donated by Mike Rogers, Linda Fowler and Flower Power Lymo who grew sunflowers during the 2019 project and saved their seeds.
We are also grateful to everyone who has donated to The Big Sunflower Project since 2011, enabling us to celebrate our 10th anniversary. You can read about these people below.
Looking forward to seeing everyone’s sunflower photos over the summer. Until then stay safe everyone.
Further information
Further information about the project can be found on The Big Sunflower Project website and on social media, where photos can be shared using #TheBigSunflowerProject. Use #centronuclear, #centronuclearmyopathy, #myotubular and #myotubularmyopathy to help raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy too.
Seed distribution for The Big Sunflower Project will begin again in early 2020, which will be the tenth year of the project.
The Big Sunflower Project is an initiative of The Information Point for Centronuclear and Myotubular Myopathy which aims to provide information about and raise awareness of these rare neuromuscular conditions. The project raises awareness by sending sunflower seeds to people who have never heard of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy and by sharing participants photos online.
300 packets of seeds containing 50 seeds will be distributed in 2020 (one packet of seeds per applicant.) Project seeds are sent free of charge to participants but anyone wanting to make a donation for their seeds can do so via this website.
Donations are ploughed back into the project – they enable the project to send more seeds to more people and help secure the future of the project.
The Big Sunflower Project is not associated with any freebie websites. Please do not share information about the project with these organisations. The project does not have the capacity to deal with the number of requests generated by being advertised on these websites and if featured, it will force seed distribution to stop.
Anyone is welcome to apply for seeds but priority is given to families affected by centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, community groups and good causes. Previously, seeds have been donated to schools and nurseries, community groups, groups who work with disadvantaged people, hospices and youth groups to name a few, so as well as raising awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, the project supports the activities of these groups too.
Kindness was definitely the motivation in sending the seeds. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a small person with all this chaos going on right now and on top of that, not being able to be with your friends and watching your parents go off to work too. So, I decided to send a few surprise packages to schools that I learned were still open, in the hope it might make them feel a bit special and give them something to look forward to. Hopefully staff and parents will get some enjoyment from seeing the sunflowers too.
Photos submitted to the project are shared on the project social media pages (Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) and in The Information Point newsletter Our World. Photos are also sometimes used in applications for grants and funding, without which the project could not continue.
It is only possible to send seeds to the UK and Europe but the project wholeheartedly welcomes participation from anyone who wants to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy by growing a sunflower and people who buy their own seeds are welcome to join in (if you would like to do this, please get in touch advising where you will be growing your sunflowers, so you can be included on the project map.)
2019 was the ninth year of The Big Sunflower Project. This year seeds were sent across the UK and to The Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Lithuania and Germany and sunflowers were also grown in Canada, the USA and Argentina. For the third time the project was joined by people growing sunflowers in memory of Emil, who was diagnosed with myotubular myopathy and sadly passed away in 2016. And for the first time sunflowers were grown in Australia, for George who has myotubular myopathy.
Sunflower growing season is now over in the UK but if you are in a part of the world about to get its summer, please consider buying a packet of seeds and growing a sunflower to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, we would love to continue receiving sunflower photos over the winter months.
The Big Sunflower Project is only possible because of the kindness of the organisations who support our work with donations, discounts, funding and publicity. Sunflower seeds for The Big Sunflower Project 2019 were provided by Kings Seeds, who provided 300 packets of seeds at a large discount.
Seeds were also donated by people who harvested seeds from sunflowers they grew during the 2018 project – thank you Katrin, Mike and the University of Leicester Social Impact team. In addition the project received a £200 donation from Cheshire West Voluntary Action, a £150 donation from Sanctuary Housing and a donation of stamps from project participant Sue.
The Big Sunflower Project was also recently featured in the Liverpool Echo and we are grateful to Semble and the Liverpool Echo for making this happen. You can read the article below.
This year 300 places were plotted on the project map which can be seen below – click a sunflower to learn more about the people growing sunflowers in that location.
Photos
Over 700 photos were received from 81 participants this year. Every photo received was posted on social media to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. Photos from the 2019 project can be found below.
Participant stories are incredibly important as they show the reach and impact of the project. If you would like to share your story too, please get in touch.
Harvesting sunflower seeds
Don’t forget that if you have grown a sunflower this year you can save the seeds for growing next year or you can donate these to the project for others to grow. You can learn how to harvest your sunflower seeds below.
There is no charge for project seeds or the cost of postage, the project does however, welcome donations to ensure the future of the project and to enable seeds to be sent to as many people as possible each year. If you have donated for your seeds, thank you – if you like to donate you can learn more about how to do this below.
Preparations are already underway for The Big Sunflower project 2020. This is a milestone year for the project as it will be the tenth year we have grown sunflowers to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. You can read below how the project began.
100 packets of seeds have already been donated by Thompson and Morgan and seeds will shortly be arriving from Tamar Organics and Grow Seed. Harvested seeds from 2019 project participants are also promised.
We have also been able to obtain discounted postage stamps for 2020. Stamps are a major expense for the project and if we were say to send seeds to 300 people during the year, at current prices (83p for a large second class stamp) this would cost £249.00. Stamps for the 2020 project have been purchased with a discount of between 8 – 12% so is a massive saving which we will now be able to use elsewhere – thank you to Mike Abram for all his hard work sorting this for the project.
Next year we will once again be joined by our friends Zusammenstark, growing sunflowers for Emil. You can learn more about their involvement on their website below.
Seed distribution for The Big Sunflower Project will begin again in early 2020. An announcement will be made on social media advising when seed applications are once again being accepted.
Amy took part in The Big Sunflower Project in 2019. Below she writes about her reasons for taking part.
My name is Amy, I am currently studying Digital Photography at University of Chester. At 16 I was diagnosed with centronuclear myopathy (CNM), Dynamin 2 (DNM2) mutation along with hypermobility.
I decided to take part in The Big Sunflower Project to be more involved in the community, as it is nice to have people that understand emotions and issues that go along with the condition. The sunflower project seemed like a great, proactive way to raise awareness about the condition that I myself and people I love have (people who I have only been able to meet through online community and pages that have been set up e.g. the sunflower project, CNM and myotubular page).
Documenting my sunflowers growth and creating little updates felt like almost a way to give something back to the amazing people that run the pages, websites and projects for our community. I wanted to take part in The Big Sunflower Project because without these pages I would not have been able to meet so many amazing people around the world and probably would have still felt very isolated and scared by my condition.
The Neuromuscular Centre is the Centre of Excellence for people with neuromuscular conditions. Based in Cheshire the charity supports people across the UK and sometimes further afield, providing physiotherapy, training and employment. Below Alison Evans from the centre writes about their involvement in The Big Sunflower Project during 2018.
Sunflower fever swept across the NeuroMuscular Centre (NMC) this summer! We have loved having the bright, showy blooms livening up our grounds (and some of our homes too) but, perhaps more importantly, we have greatly enjoyed working with our friends at The Information Point.
Numerous members of staff took on the challenge to grow sunflowers to help raise awareness for centronuclear myopathy and myotubular myopathy. We took over spaces in the NMC garden, the car park, the meadow, the greenhouse and even our Sales Manager’s bedroom, to cultivate our plants and turn our vista sunshine yellow.
As a centre of excellence for people with neuromuscular conditions, we were eager to help The Information Point raise awareness. Like Toni, we believe in the power of community. Everyone can flourish given the correct support and guidance and we think that the sunflowers are a fabulous metaphor for this.
At the NMC, we offer physiotherapy, support, training and employment to people with muscular dystrophy. We believe that peer to peer support is a key part of everyone’s wellbeing and that raising awareness of all neuromuscular conditions is an important baseline.
NMC Design+Print is a graphic design and printing company at the heart of the NMC; predominantly staffed, and managed by, people with MD. We provide a friendly, professional and creative service with a healthy serving of social value! The profits we make go toward the running costs of the NMC, so by working with us you also support the charity.
Together, we want to inspire young people with disabilities, and to encourage our community to be bold and strive for their dreams. We do this by offering graphic design training, numerous creative workshops, work placements and employment opportunities to people with MD, to help them launch themselves into a career in the creative industry or charity sector.
Partnering with The Information Point has allowed us to pool our audiences across a variety of social media platforms to reach a greater number of people affected by the conditions. It has also helped us to improve our gardening skills, learn more about centronuclear and myotubular myopathies (and as a bonus, we learnt the correct spellings!).
Winter is now drawing in but the project isn’t over yet! Many of us are drying our sunflowers to save the seeds for next year.
The NeuroMuscular Centre again took part in The Big Sunflower Project in 2019, this time using their seeds as part of a seed planting workshop held at the centre. The workshop aimed to encourage staff and service users to plant seeds for growing in the centre’s greenhouse, with the plants either being planted out in the grounds of the centre or sold to raise funds for the centre.
Project sunflower seeds were planted during the workshop as part of a community sunflower growing project over the summer months, with people paying £1 for a sunflower seed and a pot to support the work of the centre.
Entrants were encouraged to share photos of their sunflowers and certificates and were awarded for the tallest sunflower but also the sunflower with the most sunflowers. the first sunflower to bloom and the sunflower that flowered in the face of adversity, having tried to grow around the cycle racks at the front of the building.
In September, the centre’s ‘smallest’ tallest sunflower grower was delighted to receive a certificate, together with a prize of garden tools and a packet of seeds, so she could continue gardening.
To learn more about the work of the Neuromuscular Centre and NMC Design and Print, take a look at the short film below.
In 2019 The Big Sunflower Project was contacted by Leanne, a Can Do Sport Programme Coordinator at Leonard Cheshire, who was creating an accessible garden and outdoor classroom at Marketfield School in Colchester, as part of a programme called ‘Can Do Sport’, an activity-based skills course for young people aged up to 35 years old with disabilities, mental health issues or long-term health conditions.
Leanne explained that Can Do Sport is about encouraging young people to become more active and lead healthy lifestyles (gardening included). Participants do 16 hours and when achieving a number of outcomes they can earn a City and Guilds endorsed certificate.
The Marketfield School project was funded by the National Garden Scheme, which each year chooses a number of charities to donate to and Leonard Cheshire had been fortunate to receive some money to create a courtyard garden at the school.
Leanne says ‘The sunflowers were grown on a windowsill and then planted outside against a sunny wall. It was really nice and everyone gave their sunflower a name. Growing sunflowers for The Big Sunflower Project was a great way for pupils to learn about gardening and also to help raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy.’
The Big Sunflower Project 
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