This Saturday 6 goodgymmers headed to Surbiton High School to help Growbaby with their annual Christmas gift giving mission. It was a pleasure to welcome Laura and Aleesha on their 1st goodgym task and to have Sophie join us from Wandsworth!

Growbaby is an awesome organisation who provide good quality new and second-hand baby clothes and equipment, completely free of charge, to anyone who needs it - regardless of their income, background or faith.

In December they also take on the mammoth task of collecting, sorting and packing up gifts for thousands of children in the Borough of Kingston who might not otherwise receive a Christmas present.

On entering the school hall, it was humbling to see the piles upon piles of clothes, teddies, books and toys that had generously been donated. The first task was to unload the bags and sort them out by gender and age. The items ranged from teeny tiny hats and comforters for newborn babies to Ted Baker gift sets for young adults leaving care. Caroline even found an Amazon fire hidden in the pile!

Next we collected the bundles of tags detailing the age and genders of the children/young people who have been nominated and went ‘shopping’ from the relevant piles to load up their gift bag. It was great fun getting into the mindset of our younger selves and deciding what to pick but also very tricky not to get carried away and overload the bags, given how many children Growbaby aim to help.

After nearly 2 and a half hours of sorting and packing we called it a day, grabbing a (thoroughly appreciated) slice of pizza for the road. We all agreed this was a really enjoyable mission and we look forward to helping out again in the future!