Meet Holly — Head of Minsteracres Outreach

If you’ve visited Minsteracres on an Outreach day in the last five or six years, you may well have encountered Holly — quietly leading a group through the Peace Garden, or sitting with someone in the parlour while the fire crackled in the background.

Holly is the new Head of Outreach at Minsteracres, taking over the coordination role from the much-loved Liz Holmes. But she’s far from new to the work. She’s been part of the Outreach team for years — running wellbeing sessions in the Peace Garden, facilitating garden therapy, and bringing something rare to every group she works with: a sense of calm, unhurried presence.

A life shaped by community

Holly grew up in a residential community in Scotland, in a large shared house with adults with disabilities — a life shaped early by service, connection and living alongside difference. She spent years in Newcastle working in community development, supporting refugees and asylum seekers, and doing outreach at the Queen’s Hall Arts Centre. She’s also a mindfulness practitioner, a trained end-of-life doula, and still runs a small Steiner Forest School kindergarten one day a week from her home retreat centre in the hills above Allendale.

When Ross and Katrina first approached her about working in the Peace Garden, she knew immediately it was somewhere she could bring her whole self.

“There’s a really strong sense of familiarity for me here. It’s a space given over to service, where people are living and working together. I felt at home immediately.”

What Outreach actually looks like

An Outreach day at Minsteracres is carefully crafted. Groups — unpaid carers, people in recovery, refugees, those facing end of life, young people experiencing mental health difficulties — are picked up by minibus, welcomed with tea and an opening circle, given half-hour holistic therapy treatments, served a full home-cooked lunch, and then brought down to the Peace Garden for a meditative session and a seasonal craft to take home.

Holly describes watching people arrive tense and leave lighter. She talks about the home-cooked meals — how, for some people, simply being served a warm meal by someone who cares can change the atmosphere of a whole room. She talks about tears, and about laughter — and the way they often come in quick succession.

“There has never been an Outreach day where there are no tears. We don’t aim for that — but we create a space where people feel safe enough to let something go.”

Looking ahead

Holly is energised about what’s possible — building relationships with local organisations, growing the volunteer team, exploring sponsorship and donation routes, and finding new ways to get the word out about the work being done here.

She’s also clear about what won’t change: the quality of care, the belief in the work, and the extraordinary little team that makes it all happen.

If you’d like to support the Outreach programme — through volunteering, sponsorship, or simply sharing what we do — we’d love to hear from you.