I joined local volunteers for National Volunteering Week, as part of a day to raise awareness for volunteering and to encourage others to take part in local schemes.
I met volunteers from around the Fareham and Wickham area supporting a local community initiative called ‘The Project’. Part of the community scheme is to collect out of date food from local supermarkets to give to local people in need.
More recently, The Project has launched a campaign for a new community garden, using local volunteers to help build a garden from scratch, making raised beds, preparing the soil and planting vegetables. Volunteers have also been getting stuck into painting and working on the storage container. Volunteers are drafted from all walks of life with local SME’s and larger companies, such as Barclays branch in Fareham, providing volunteers as well as local people who live in the surrounding area. The event, held last Friday, took place during National Volunteers Week, where over 22 million people from across the UK took part in a volunteering scheme.
Volunteers do invaluable work across our area, giving up their time for their community and helping others. I would like to thank all the Community First and Fareham volunteers who transformed the Wickham Centre as part of Volunteers Week! It was a pleasure to drop in with Meon Valley MP, George Hollingbery to meet everyone. There was some impressive pruning, planing and painting. Great to see Fareham’s Barclays team taking part too. It was a great Volunteers Week 2018- find out how you can volunteer and make a difference in your local community all year round by visiting www.volunteersweek.org and www.ncvo.org.uk