Four Goodgymmers, working in pairs over 2 shifts, braved the snow, sleet and slush to help Life After Hummus, a local food-waste-fighting charity based in Camden.

Asher and Stephen met at the warehouse for the first shift at 11am. Having been informed of their mission, they headed out into the snow and went to collect donations from a local supermarket.

Jacqui and Sally met for the second shift at 1pm, collected the trolley and then jogged/slid up to Aldi on Camden High Street. Once there, they were quickly shown through to the crates set aside for Life after Hummus. Having loaded the trolley they made their way back to the warehouse where the donations were gratefully received.

Six GoodGymmers joined the Friends of Russell Square volunteer gardening group to sow grass seeds. It was a much easier task than last week's attempted bulb-planting, as the rain had nicely softened up the top soil. It was a lovely, chatty way to spend the morning. With special permission from the task requester, my son made another cameo appearance at the end of the task - this time in his dream job of official pigeon-scarer, to stop the birds from undoing our work as soon as it was done. There was plenty more work to be done when we finished so stay tuned for more community missions here.

28 Goodgymers ran 3-5km to help the American International Church and Age UK Camden

Welcome along to newbies Beth, Rachel, Asher, Stephen, Amanda and Ian - thanks for coming along. We also had tourists from Stockport and Lewisham - amazing!

In the news this week:

1. There will be a GoodGym Social next Thursday, sign up here.
2. The GoodGym Olympics is going to be on Saturday 3rd August this year at Parliament Hill Track. Sign up here and represent Camden.

What a good night! We had two wonderful tasks help older people and the homeless in our community. Both tasks involved beds!

Age UK Camden:

15 of us headed around 1km away to help Age UK Camden, a fantastic charity. Our biggest challenge on the way there was crossing Euston Road, I have no idea where all those people are going!!

Upon our arrival Abul tasked us with emptying five planters of soil and dismantling the wooden containers which kept the soil in. It was a great task, our only issue was the lack of tools. We used forks, spades, plastic containers and even our hands to collect soil to pile up on one side of the garden.

Let's Get Physical

Working on three of the planters at once we got tons done over the 45 minutes we were there, taking apart and piling up lots of old wood but also emptying the planters we worked on. Talk about physical!

After finishing up we headed for an extended run home taking in Coram Fields and Russell Square.

American International Church by Pritesh:

13 of us headed off to the American International Church for our weekly trip to make beds for their homeless shelter. Kat was leading and we weaved our way through the streets to get to the church as fast as we could.

Once there we had a stirring speech from one of the organisers explaining the impact our 15 minutes of volunteering really makes – the stories really brought to life the hardships of those that have to use the shelter but also how much good can come from giving up our time and effort to help. With not much time, as ever, we worked quickly to get duvets covered, pillows stuffed in cases and hospital corners fixed on all the sheets!

Impact

With everything done we posed for a group photo and then Kat led us for a high intensity fitness session in Russell Square before we headed back to base, stretched and some headed for a well deserved drink.

Sign up for next week here, we'll be helping Alara and the homeless shelter.

PB out