Employee volunteering and student volunteering in Hampshire are great ways to serve local communities while making new connections. But how can you get involved and where can you volunteer? There are amazing causes that would appreciate a helping hand all across our area. At Community First, we know how fun and rewarding it can be to team up with local residents for the benefit of rural communities.
Take a look at how local residents, businesses, and students helped to get a community garden off the ground for the people of Wickham, Hampshire during Volunteers’ Week 2018 – and listen to how they found taking part in a Volunteer Away Day.
Getting green fingers is always a great exercise for personal and planetary well-being, especially in the warmer weather. At the local level, it can also hugely benefit the long term health and happiness of a whole community.
Our recent Volunteer Away Day was all about creating a new community gardening space at Wickham Community Centre, where local residents can grow their own produce. This initiative is being led by The Project, which contributes to local health and sustainability by enabling communities to work together, increasing local self sufficiency and reducing waste. You can find out more about their mission on their Facebook page.
As you can see, 3 hours and 40 volunteers makes a huge difference. Our hard working team for the day instantly got to work on creating a new raised planting bed, clearing overgrowth, planting and pruning, and painting the Community Garden Cabin a lush and vibrant new shade of green.
The development of this new space will be an ongoing project, but our volunteers made amazing progress to prepare the garden for its flourishing (and nourishing) future.
Hear from some of our volunteers…
Imogen is an A Level student at Peter Symonds College whose ambition is to be a landscape architect. She told us about why she volunteered to take part, both for the community and for her own aspirations:
Aura Technology are an IT services company based in Southampton, but Rhys and his colleagues kindly made the journey to Wickham for some team volunteering. Hear how he found his day out of the office:
Sian from Barclays Bank in Park Gate shared how her team were getting stuck into some good gardening graft, and why they came out to help:
Stephanie from Byrne Runciman, an estate agents based in Wickham, let us know her thoughts about getting involved in the community as a local business:
We’re really pleased that our volunteers made such a brilliant contribution to Wickham’s up and coming community garden, and that they had the satisfaction of a day in the sunshine meeting new people.
Want to get yourself, your team, or your students involved in a Volunteer Away Day? Get in touch with our Volunteer Services Team on volunteer@cfirst.org.uk. You can also contact Rachel Taylor at Rachel.taylor@cfirst.org.uk or telephone 0300 500 8085 ext. 9724 for more information about how you can get involved with the Employee Volunteering Scheme.
Find out more about volunteering for students
You can also check for all the latest opportunities on our dedicated website Volunteer Wessex
Read about our other recent outings: Butser Ancient Farm | Unit12 Community Hub | The Hermitage Stream | Beach clean on Hayling Island | Billy’s Lake