Today we successfully sorted all the books for visiting children and unpacked a lot of baby grows for growing babies!

We kicked off the year by helping re-open Growbaby’s doors after the festive closure. Many donations to sort and distribute - winter hats, coats and gloves dished out to ease the burden of the winter! We certainly saw it, said it and sorted it to the max! Great session!

Full of Christmas spirit 6 GoodGymers were up bright and early to help at the pop up Christmas shop for clients of the Kingston Pantry.

GoodGym split themselves between being personal shoppers (Anna, Petra & Julie) and restocking the shelves (Dave, Julie, Saber & Claire) with wonderful gifts including Lego, toiletry sets, cool boxes, dolls, remote control cars and even robotic snakes!

Personal shopping allowed us to meet the clients and take them around the different sections where they could select a set number of gifts. As the gifts were snapped up the shelves were quickly restocked by the team.

Meanwhile Claire put together gift packages of toys, books and clothes for some very young children being looked after by another charity this Christmas.

The Pantry's clients were delighted with their selections as it meant they could provide gifts for their families this Christmas.

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 :)

Another great session at Growbaby sorting the toys, clothes and donations.