Gearing up for a busy Summer – Earth Day and Volunteers’ week

Written by Habiba Begum, Community Development Project Manager, ChallengeELBA

As we stroll into the warmer days of Spring, our Community Team is in full swing gearing up for our busiest period of the year, our highly anticipated jam-packed summer season of team challenges. Last year we had 772 volunteers participate in Volunteers’ Week and we anticipate even more for 2025.

We are kicking off our spring/summer volunteering season with World Earth Day on 22 April. We have some exciting group volunteering activities scheduled for this celebratory day of giving back to our planet. London City Airport will be heading to one of our popular community partner sites, Abbey Gardens in West Ham, for a fun and exciting day of group volunteering.

Team Challenge volunteers will be carrying out a range of tasks during World Earth Day that will widely benefit Abbey Gardens for the months that are to come. These activities include clearing flower beds, making seed sowing compost, laying wood chips, beekeeping maintenance, separating and propagating plants, to name just a few of the day’s activities.

Our team is gearing up for our most popular week of the year, the soon approaching Volunteers’ Week from 2 -6 June. Volunteers’ Week will certainly be a green one this year, and one project we’re looking forward to is working with Cayley Primary School in Tower Hamlets, where team challenges will be centring around “maintenance of the gardens in a wild way”. Our volunteers will be working with Anthony, the school’s new Eco Gardener and their focus will be on creating biodiverse habitats across the Wild Garden through boggy patch making and frog/amphibian hotel building projects.

We are super excited to see the impact our volunteers leave this Spring and Summer, and we cannot wait to see our Community Partner sites ‘before and after’ summer transformations!

As we embrace this exciting season of community engagement, we encourage everyone to get involved and make a difference. Whether you are a returning volunteer or joining us for the first time, your contribution plays a vital role in supporting our local green spaces and community initiatives. Together, we can create lasting positive change while enjoying the rewarding experience of teamwork and outdoor volunteering. We look forward to seeing you all in action!

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