We've been to Kingston Voluntary Action's new project redistributing surplus food this summer and seen how it's been coming on.

Organiser Emma had a load of different tasks for us to do, from crushing boxes, sweeping, cleaning out their fridge as well as their van.

Anna, Amreet, Claire (expert power washer), Tom, Emma, Emily Luke, Levita, John (top leaf-blowing), Dave (skilful van driving), Rachel and first-timer Jonathan got involved in a bit of everything and we'd made a big difference by the end.

We didn't leave empty-handed, either. The great thing about a food hub is…food…and we got some water kefir and cacao bars for our trouble.

Nice to be back helping a very worthy cause.

Nightmare on Elm Park

Eight GoodGymers took advantage of a break in the rain to join the Friends of Elm Road Recreation Ground for a tough but rewarding task.

A thick carpet of leaves – and an even thicker layer of compacted soil lurking beneath – has built up along the fences of the children’s playground. Armed with hoes and spades, we fought our way through the matted weeds and nettle roots. Once loosened, the debris was swept, brushed, and bagged up - a lot of squatting and shovelling was needed!

Great to see the pile of filled sacks and the difference at the end. The fences were freed and more space was reclaimed for children to enjoy – without the sting of nettles. A proper transformation.

Fashion Police, Winter Coats & Animal Hats – Another Fun Hour at Growbaby!

This evening, our team of GoodGymmers got stuck into an hour of sorting, organising, and laughing at the always-busy Growbaby charity.

Rachel led the charge and even arranged a donation drop-off from her friend—brilliant teamwork! Levita and Jana channelled their inner fashion critics as they tackled a mountain of baby sleepsuits and snuggle bags. Their keen eyes helped fill three bin bags with items that didn’t make the cut. Honestly, it's always surprising (and sometimes baffling!) what people donate...

Meanwhile, Clair was a whirlwind of productivity, zipping through the stock and making sense of the ever-growing piles of clothes.

There was a moment of light relief when we unearthed some truly fierce animal headgear—cue laughter and an impromptu photo session. We also managed to squeeze in a few stories from summer travels while sorting, proving once again that a bit of chat makes the time fly.

Great work all round, and a big thanks to Rachel for organising another fab task!

We were helping out at Growbaby this evening - It's an amazing hub that supports families that are in need of baby equipment and clothes age 0-5 years old. They have lots of donations and so therefore need lots of hands to organise and manage everything... GoodGym Kingston provided just this - 10 pairs of will hands to help out with a whole load of different tasks.

We set about with a variety of jobs. In no particular order: re-organising the toy boxes (and getting rid of random plastic bits that don't belong); sorting clothes; checking the shoes are paired and in the right boxes; flatpacking the excess of cardboard boxes; building a clothes rail and then filling it with a number of autumn coats in time for the pre-term rush; clearing a load of items from the spooky 'room of doom' in the basement... this list goes on...

As is generally the way with GG, we flew through the tasks and really did prove that many hands make light work. Tanya, the lady in charge of the charity, was very impressed by the achievement after only 1 hour :)

Six GoodGymers - Sekar, Marie-Noelle, Marcus, Luke, Zoe and Sophie teamed up to help out at Canburry Community Garden to help Marylin one last time with some much needed vegetable beds watering, water fetching from the river, pruning of the tall bushes around the fencing area, clearing the fallen leaves from the outbuilding gutter and some weeding and clearing of the path for easy wheel-chair access. As we said goodbye to Marylin who is retiring, we got to know Susan who takes over as Lead Gardener.

Meanwhile over at the GoodGym flowerbed it was a watery work out for Tom, Louise and Saber who filled the large buckets with river water and transported them to the flowerbed by wheel barrow.

The flowers were given an extra good water followed by some super mulching to keep all the moisture in.

In between the watering and mulching Claire removed the litter and a few small weeds. Hopefully the rain will make an appearance soon to give the muscles a rest from watering.

Welcome to Sekar, Sophie and Zoe on their first task with Kingston GoodGym we hope to see you again soon.

As the students had left town for the Summer it was a good opportunity to give the Kingsgate Church food bank a Summer clean.

Claire and Farzeen started working on the fridges and freezers cleaning away the pesky crumbs and washing all the shelves and drawers.

Meanwhile upstairs the team of Luke, Tom, Jenny, Anna and Enara started to sort the canned fruit, meatballs, soup and some very strange looking drinks to identify those which had expired or were close to expiry. Anything close to expiry was put at the top of the pile and everything that had expired was separated out.

One of the freezers needed a little help defrosting for its clean so Anna joined Farzeen with some hot water to give it a helping hand whilst Tom tackled the last fridge.

Everything cleaned and sorted some brave Goodgymers decided to try the mystery drinks that would apparently provide calmness. Some slightly odd expressions followed the tasting - very sweet flavoured with a combination of berries was the verdict. Let’s hope they provided a sense of calm and serenity.

For those that didn’t fancy the mystery drinks there was an assortment of soup, tinned fruit and shepherds pies to take home that were close to expiry and prevent unnecessary food waste.

A big welcome to our newcomers Jenny and Enara!