The BIG Spring Clean 2009 :
27/02/2009
On Wednesday 25 and Friday 27 February, Community Action at Royal Holloway, University of London held the ‘BIG Spring Clean’, which placed student and staff volunteers in the local community in order to spruce up the neighbourhood. Having attracted much praise with this initiative in the past two years, this year’s BIG Spring Clean was bigger and better than ever before.
For the event, an army of over 100 volunteers descended upon the local and surrounding areas of Egham and Englefield Green. The volunteers’ activities spanned tidying the grounds at Englefield Green and Egham Youth Clubs, clearing a footpath in the Thorpe Lea area, and litter-picking and recycling in Englefield Green and Egham. In addition, volunteers also assembled furniture at Surrey Women’s Aid and cleaned street name signs in Englefield Green, following requests from the Englefield Green Village Residents’ Association (EGVRA). A further initiative was organised at Christ Church Infants School, where volunteers assisted the re-organisation of the School’s library.
Along with the Community Action volunteering team, many Students’ Union clubs and societies also volunteered. These included over 20 volunteers from the Men’s and Women’s Basketball Teams, who were involved in tidying the grounds of Heathrow Special Needs Farm. Meanwhile, the Ballads Society helped clean out the equipment storage areas at Englefield Green Infants School. Overall, the volunteers spent over 350 hours serving the local community, during which they also collected 23 bags of rubbish, most of which will be recycled.
Phil Simcock, Community Action Volunteer Co-ordinator for the College, says, ‘This aspect of the volunteering programme is great for students who are enthusiastic about serving the local area in which they live. All the projects undertaken were in response to requests from local community organisations which required a team of volunteers to meet a genuine need’.
Phil continued, ‘Community Action’s ambition was to ensure that this year’s event surpassed those from the previous two years. Many projects were organised over the two days and the event was a real success. The College’s volunteers received lots of praise from the good causes they helped’.
Christine Welsh, Secretary of EGVRA, has been impressed by the students’ commitment to helping the local community, commenting, ‘We really do appreciate the students’ tremendous effort, involvement and commitment to keep our village a lovely place in which to live, work and learn’.
For more information about the event, visit www.rhul.ac.uk/volunteering/theBIGspringclean2009.html
For further information on Community Action, visit www.rhul.ac.uk/volunteering