Barclays take a break from the office to help CAFT!

25/05/2023

Barclays Radbroke volunteer with CAFT

This year at CAFT we have several maintenance based volunteering days available for our corporate supporters. Huge thank you to one of our long standing supporters, Barclays, who brought a team along for the day for some work on the farm!

Matthew Sargeant from Barclays Radbroke shares his team’s experience:

“On Thursday 11th May, about 25 of us from Payments at Barclays Radbroke went over to CAFT for the day to help them out with some in person activity for the day. We spent the day doing some manual work, which is a refreshing change of pace when you have a job that sticks you at a desk all week! We were weeding, building & painting fences, clearing some steps from an overgrown thicket & helping unload the van where required too. We’d also managed to acquire a grant for CAFT too which I know will be put to good use. The staff treated us to hot drinks & cakes which went down an absolute treat and we even had time for a little kick about after the work was done.

Spending time at CAFT is an incredible experience and when you’re there, it’s clear why the children that attend love it so much. I think in modern life it’s easy to forget about just how privileged and lucky most of us are and spending time supporting CAFT has really given me, and a lot of my colleagues, a sense of appreciation for this. I hope to continue working with CAFT for a long time. Massive thank-you to everyone involved, especially Ian and Robert for their help and direction on the day itself.”

Barclays Volunteering at CAFT

Could your teams get involved like Barclays?

Many businesses encourage their staff to volunteer for good causes. They recognise the benefit to the communities they help, but also the benefit to the well-being of their employees in terms of both mental and physical health. Volunteering in a team is also hugely beneficial in terms of teambuilding and communication. To facilitate this most CSR policies will allow employees one or more volunteering days each year to make a difference in their community.

Here at CAFT we have a range of opportunities to help your employees to find a fun and meaningful use of their allocated volunteering hours.

It’s vital that our 10acres of land are maintained to the highest standard so that each and every child experiences our Adventure Farm at it’s best. Maintaining our activity areas, animal paddocks and open spaces is a huge job which we can only do due to our army of volunteers. In 2023 we have a total of 37 Maintenance Volunteering days available to Corporate teams. Projects such as fence building, painting, animal care and landscaping are suitable for novices and tradespersons alike. These are fantastic teambuilding opportunities which provide a unique opportunity for your staff to work together to achieve a common goal. Availability of these days is limited, and we ask that teams support their day with a donation to cover materials, freeing up vital funds for us to spend on activities for the children. As we are seeing an increase in demand for volunteering projects working on our land, we must also ensure that these opportunities are shared fairly amongst our business community, meaning we may not be able to accommodate multiple groups from a single business.

However, there are many other ways these teams can volunteer their time to help CAFT through the following:

Activity Programme Volunteering; we run seasonal programmes including Easter, CAFTfest, Halloween and Christmas parties. A large number of volunteers are needed on weekdays and weekends to provide amazing experiences for children and their families.
Offsite Community Volunteering; We have exciting opportunities for awareness raising and fundraising off site through our community connections. These can include shaking tins, running a CAFT stall, dressing in our mascot costumes or holding a raffle at a community event.