This year is the 30th anniversary of Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June) and to celebrate Skelton Grange Environment Centre in south Leeds has lots of volunteering opportunities going on.
Three of the days are being led by Skelton Grange’s current team of dedicated Volunteer Officers as they teach Leeds primary school children from Adel St John the Baptist Church of England Primary School and Woodlesford Primary School all about Plants and also Rocks, Soils & Composting. The Volunteer Officer programme at Skelton Grange enables people to widen their experience, build confidence whilst developing skills and partake in positive activities which promote lifelong learning and cohesive communities. It has helped hundreds of people along their way to employment in the environment, charity and education sectors.
Finally on Friday there is the chance for volunteers to visit the centre and get involved with the popular Green Team at Skelton Grange. This sociable group will be linking into a city-wide push to deal with the invasive Himalayan Balsam in order to leave space for native species of plants to flourish.
Ralph Walker from The Conservation Volunteers said
“It’s not only a busy week, but a year in general for Skelton Grange. We have a schedule packed full of school visits, training courses, bushcraft adventures and special one-off events like this year’s open day on 4 October. Volunteering is at the heart of what we do and the highlight for me during Volunteers’ Week will be seeing the Lord Mayor hand over a thank you certificate to Andy who has been volunteering with the Green Team for 9 years now!”
The wide variety of volunteering opportunities at Skelton Grange has been made possible due to funding by the National Lottery through the Big Lottery Funding and by National Grid. The five year Access2Nature project aims to improve the life prospects and wellbeing of people in Leeds facing disadvantage, by providing positive social, learning and volunteering opportunities based in the natural environment.
If you would like to join in with Voluteers’ Week at Skelton Grange or find out how else you can support this charity then visit www.tcv.org.uk/skeltongrange, or call the centre on (0113) 243 0815.
