42 people ran between 4-8k to help paint a community library and help support some trees in a community orchard.

Two task terrors

On a beautiful spring evening a huge group of people gathered in Somers Town Community Centre to head out in Camden and do something useful for somebody else. This week the 'somebody elses' were Belsize Community Library and the Alara Dream Farm. We broke into teams with 11 people dashing 4k north to Belsize and the remaining 31 high tailing it 1.5k up Camley Street.

Library saved for the Community

Belsize library was facing closure recently but was saved by a community group who also run the nearby Winch Youth Service. The place could do with a lick of paint but its really tough for the team to get round to it as they are already busy with the day to day management of 2 ambitious community projects.

A small team headed up to Belsize Park, here's the report from Axel.

A group of 12 runners went to belsize park library, with social 4k run as warm up! Every one was ready to paint the child part of the library! First we had to move all toys, books and other stuff near the place to cover the place in cream paint. The painting was very organised- we split in 4 groups, wall painters, heater painters, masking tapers, and high wall painters.

25 minutes later, it was time to wash all the brushes, and clean the space. For the 4k back, we were a little bit late so we had to increase the pace. We split in two groups with 5 runners on a faster pace ! We finally got back to Somers town only 2 minutes late.

Thriving Community Food Growing Hub

Alara Wholefoods in Kings Cross is a tasty muesli manufacturer whose founder Alex is passionate about food and sustainability. He runs a series of community growing projects from the estate- including a flourishing Orchard, and an EcoPark hub where local food growing groups can access lovely fresh compost...Ummmmm. There's always lots to do and hopefully our muscle will help benefit all the other groups using the site,

Fruit tree Support line

We had 3 jobs- to remove the wooden stakes and wire casing from around the fruit trees in the Orchard to allow them to flourish, to pop cardboard around the base of the trees to prevent weeds growing and to cover the cardboard in some lovely compost. It took us a few minutes to get going but once we started to work out the supply line- with 'shovel-lers' filling up compost buckets, heavy 'luggers' carrying them to the trees and 'spreaders' making sure no cardboard was visible through the compost. Great work team.

Muesli Box Batons

We finished the tasks and tidied away the tools before heading for home. As we left Alex brought us all a lovely box of muesli as a 'thank you'! I think it's might be the first time I have ever seen 30 people running through Camden with boxes of muesli stuffed under their arms!