Arriving at the community mission this morning, we were greeted with a hive of activity and a room full of willing volunteers from across the borough.

The task in hand was to pack 1700 tote bags full of goodies, such as pens, pencils and activity books, which could be distributed to local children in the borough who needed them the most. With the school term coming to end this week, it was vital that the packs reached the children before the final bell sounded for summer, so time was of the essence.

First off, we were all invited to put on PPE before being assigned to a work station. The volunteers from the previous days had done a fantastic job at organising piles of each item that needed to go into the bag. From there we worked in almost a meditative state filling up each of the bags with every item on the list.

By lunchtime we had filled up all of our bags and began organising them into piles, ready to be packed up and shipped off to the different schools accordingly.

The last day of school before summer can bring up a mix of emotions, but really hoping these packs go a little way to bringing a few smiles and something to look forward to over summer. Job well done all!