While passengers jet off on their summer holidays, staff at London Stansted aren’t taking a break as they show off their gardening skills to help two local good causes.
Teams of green-fingered volunteers went out last week to spruce up the Gardens of Easton Lodge near Great Dunmow and tidy up the land surrounding Millard House care home in Bocking near Braintree.
In the last year, 350 airport employees have given over 7000 hours of their time to volunteer in the local community.
The airport encourages its staff to offer their skills on a voluntary basis to not only help strengthen ties with the areas in which colleagues live and work, but to also support employee wellbeing and engagement.
"We had a great day and it was time well spent helping others. You don’t realise how rewarding volunteering is until you do it, it makes you feel good knowing your time and effort means so much to someone else." Cheryl Ferris, Airside Security Officer and Bocking resident
"We all had a wonderful day. I’m a regular visitor to the Gardens with my family so it was an absolute pleasure to take the team out and support this excellent project. I think we really made a difference in such a short space of time." Paul Grimwood, Programme Delivery Manager, lives in Braintree and spent a day volunteering at the Gardens of Easton Lodge
"Everyone involved with the Gardens of Easton Lodge would like to say a huge thank you to the team from Stansted Airport who came to help on 8th August. Their enthusiasm for hard work and fun approach got the mammoth task of raking and clearing all the dead vegetation from the north side of the glade done in an unbelievably short space of time. All the overhanging trees in the whole area of the glade were then given where necessary an overdue haircut. The fantastic results at the end of the day were there for all to see." Claire Matthews, Trustee of Gardens of Easton Lodge Preservation Trust
"On behalf of the residents, staff and management, we’d like to thank the airport volunteers very much for their hard work in helping to transform our car park area. We have all been very pleased with the results and the painted fence looks fresh and smart. The garden area where they cleared the rubbish was previously unused so it's wonderful that we now have additional space where residents can sit outside and enjoy the fresh air. The work done by volunteers is invaluable because it means that money that we would have been spent on painting the fence can now be used to bring in an outside entertainer or some other type of treat which will benefit everyone." Sue Wells, Millard House care home
Recommended for you...
