Royal Holloway, University of London, hosted the Festival of Volunteering on Wednesday 20 September, during the University’s Welcome Week.

The festival, which took place within Founder’s Square, was launched by the Mayor of Runnymede, Cllr Shannon Saise-Marshall and sponsored by Challenges Abroad, a charity that supports community development and volunteering abroad opportunities in some of the poorest regions of the world.

The all-day event encouraged both students and staff to get involved with volunteering opportunities available at Royal Holloway, and to be part of the University’s ever growing voluntary presence in the local community.

The festival had many voluntary activities available for students to sign up to including Community Action, Social Action, Community Research, Volunteering Abroad and Sports Volunteering.

On the day, there were 16 student led projects to sample, such as the Community Garden, where a team of volunteers take care of a garden and are part of many events including planting, how to DIY your own greenhouse and how to make your own plant hangers. Other projects included ESOL Tutoring where students work with Syrian, Afghan and Ukrainian refugees to improve their English skills. There were also 42 community partner organisations including Voluntary Support North Surrey, UCE Charity Bookstall, Runnymede Foodbank, the Prison Advice and Care Trust and many more.

Luke Russell, Volunteering Manager said:

“While the weather was not on our side, we had a really fantastic day at the Festival of Volunteering. We had over 1,300 students visit the Community Partners on Founders Square and a further 2,500 people passing through the Davison Building where our Social Action project stalls were situated. It is always great to bring new organisations to Royal Holloway as well as our longstanding community partners, and we are really hopeful that we will see some great volunteering this academic year as a result.”