Thanks to employees and friends of Groundwork Greater Manchester the benches within Trafford Ecology Park have been brought back to life this week, providing much needed seating for visitors who may wish to rest their feet or enjoy a picnic, or for local businesses who may wish to use the benches for informal meetings whilst social distancing measures are in place.
In need of volunteers
Due to COVID-19 the majority of the parks corporate volunteering days have been cancelled or postponed, leaving Trafford Ecology Park to become over grown and a little run down.
Most of the benches in the Ecology Park had become weathered and the plants had overgrown:
Volunteering in action
Volunteers who could spare a few hours started by clearing the overgrown debris from the benches and raking the off-cut’s away. The benches were then scrubbed down with hot water and left to dry. A few hours later they were painted with a few coats of outdoor paint; making them more appealing and robust.
Free spaces for meetings
The idea behind this volunteering event came from a suggestion in Groundwork’s weekly staff meetings that perhaps the benches could be used by our neighbouring businesses as free meeting spaces, should they be struggling with capacity due to social distancing restrictions.
Thanks to these volunteers hard work 4 benches are now available to be used for meetings or other gatherings.
These are as follows:
How does volunteering make you feel?
Julia Jacob, a Greater Manchester resident passionate about the outdoors, helped volunteer on this project, she added:
I absolutely loved helping to scrub and repaint the picnic benches, it totally transformed the area! This activity made me feel like I’ve done something good, knowing they’ll be enjoyed by all kinds of visitors.
