A Falmouth family are hoping to "bring a little happiness" to students by distributing home-grown sunflowers for Macmillan Truro.

Sean Stratton and his children have been growing sunflowers for their neighbours since the first lockdown and now want to share the joy it has brought to their own household with the wider community.

There will be 48 sunflower plants available to collect from the Stratton family at the Woodlane Campus on Thursday March 25 outside the giant Falmouth sign. There will be no obligation to make a contribution to the Macmillan fund, but donation boxes will be available on the day with a suggested donation of £2 per plant.

Seam said: “There’s lots of student houses across Falmouth with not much going on in the garden and there are lots of us who after the last 12 months could do with a pick me up, I sure could.

“All I need now is the help of the student community to brighten up Falmouth this summer.”

Sean started growing sunflowers at the beginning of the pandemic for his daughter and her friend whilst schools were closed. As the sunflowers grew, so did local interest so the family began offering sunflowers to their neighbours.

The Stratton family now wants to share the same happiness to the student community after receiving such positive reactions from their neighbours.

Sean added: “Some of the adults [on my street] asked if they could have some [sunflowers] for some fun and have a tallest sunflower race....I ended up delivery 23 sunflowers, about 30cm tall, to my street. Then when I was delivery a plant to one neighbour she said the students at the student house on our street might like some as well and that’s how this grew… excuse the pun.”

A range of sunflowers seeds have been sown in the family’s propagator, ready to be distributed to students next week. The variations of sunflowers include: American Giants, Jammie Dodgers, Velvet Queens and King Kong sunflowers, each of which have signature tones of red and yellow. The 48 seeds have been mixed up and randomly sewn to surprise recipients once grown.

The sunflowers will be around three weeks old when student collect their sunflower surprise on the March 25, with a suggested donation of £2 per plant.

Any donations made when the sunflowers are distributed will be given to MacMillan Truro, a local charity specialising in cancer treatments.

On the subject of fundraising, Sean said: “I know it’s been hard on charities with lockdown stopping much of their fund raising and catching cancer early is of particular concern but also how it’s affected the counselling services they offer for patients mental health.”

“All charities have suffered from the inability to hold events so every little bit counts!”

Progress of the seeds and information on how to care for your sunflower is available on the Facebook page ‘Sunflowers Smiles’. Members of the Facebook group are invited to post pictures of their plants and enter a competition to grow the tallest sunflower.

Sean hopes that as the sunflowers bloom, they will continue to bring a smile to everyone walking around Falmouth. The flowers should last until September with care and summer heat.

He concluded: “Whenever I see a sunflower, I smile and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's simple really, the more sunflowers, the more smiles. It would be great to see them dotted all over Falmouth.”

For more information visit the ‘Sunflowers Smiles’ Facebook page or visit the Falmouth sign outside the Woodlane Campus on Thursday March 25 to speak to the Stratton family to learn more about how MacMillan will benefit from the sunflower donations.