Caroline, Gayle, Michael and Sam met up with the SOLLA volunteers outside Walworth Garden Centre to tackle another area of South London that needed a clean up of litter!

As Adam, the main coordinator of SOLLA for the day, was giving instructions to all the volunteers as well as handing out litter pickers and bin liners, Sam noticed that Caroline disappeared with another volunteer to start hunting for litter down towards the Brandon Estate. Sam hung back to wait for Gayle and Michael to lock up their bikes and get their equipment.

We decided to stay as a group as we ventured up Braganza Road towards Kennington tube station, but apart from finding a pair of men's boots we weren't getting anything of significance (plastic bottles and cigarette buds).....until we turned a corner and found ourselves on Kennings Way, where there were masses of litter near a bus stop and in the grounds of a building owned by BT (apparently). Yet, we wanted to clear this area as it was awful to look at and it seemed to encourage those waiting at the bus stop to litter in this particular spot.

The hour was up for Sam as he had to shoot off to another community mission, but the rest of the gang kept on going until meeting all the others at the Collective - Kennington Park Cafe for a deserved beverage.

It was a pleasure to see two GoodGym newbies in Caroline and Julia come and help out with Get Rid Of And Donate (GROAD) drop off session today. We needed the hands as there was an non-stop stream of donations coming through over the hour and a half.

We even had a couple that were clearing out their house as they were moving and pretty much brought everything apart from the kitchen sink...

Coming to these sessions often makes you realise how much stuff there is in the world. We sorted out through the donations and Sam brought over the items of pre-packed bags and extra bags of trousers, towels etc. to the sorting room as on Tuesday, GROAD will be distributed the bags to the rough sleepers on the Strand (Zimbabwe House).

By the end of the hour and a half session, we had prepared over a dozen bags for the rough sleepers and sorted through children's toys, women's clothes and homeware. We had to leave all the items on the tables as the cleaner needs access to clean the floor.

It was a pleasure to meet you - Caroline and Julia despite not talking to you as I just cracked on with the job at hand. I hope you'd enjoyed the session and saw the reality of what GROAD and GoodGym does. Hopefully, you can join another GoodGym session soon and we can chat as we do the task 😊