Volunteers celebrated during Student Volunteering Week

National Student Volunteering Week is the ideal time to thank and promote our committed Shrewsbury School volunteers. 

We have 180 students working on regular volunteering activities and 16 staff who help to ensure our projects run smoothly.  This year our projects consist of; helping children at 6 local primary schools to develop their reading, assisting at Severndale Specialist Academy, working at ten charity shops, supporting our local hospital, visiting the elderly at the Mount Care Home, educating younger pupils about the importance of bees (complete with hives and suits!), revamping a large garden at Headway, providing revision aid to teenage refugees, assisting with stock control and food packages at our local Foodbank, setting up a social second hand uniform shop and supporting young children at Restart Kenya with their learning and development.  These undertakings definitely deserve acknowledgement and praise, indeed, a big thank you to all the students and staff involved in making a difference and giving back to the community.”

These undertakings definitely deserve acknowledgement and praise, indeed, a big thank you to all the students and staff involved in making a difference and giving back to the community.

Here is Charlie R (Rt, LVI) to explain what the Mindfulness Project group get up to during their Thursday volunteering. 

"Every other Thursday, my friends and I travel to Headway Shrewsbury (Headway is a centre that promotes the understanding of all aspects of brain injury and provide information, support and services to survivors, their families and carers). They have a brilliant, large garden outside with a big pond, a sizeable vegetable garden and small poly tent for fruit.

"However, last year this all needed clearing out and this year it all needs a bit of love and care from us to keep it looking good. We travel down with an armoury of gardening equipment and do our best to keep the place looking smart and clean. This might including trimming bushes, sweeping leaves or even designing a new decking area. We are all split into different groups to tackle different problems, a constant problem being the weeds . . However, heads are held high as it is fun and we can all let off a bit of steam whilst resoiling the asparagus!  The constant download of leaves create plentiful work but it is really satisfying to leave the garden each week looking much better than we found it.

"The reason this garden is so important is because it provides a place of wellbeing for people with brain injuries and trauma.

"All in all it’s a fun way to spend our Thursday afternoons whilst giving back to the community.

"On the Thursdays that we are in school we are learning Mindfulness from an experienced coach and our plan is create a programme of Mindfulness that we can take into local primary schools to help younger children promote their own wellbeing."

Naomi Pritchard

Head of Volunteering 

Here's an overview of what our student volunteers do on a weekly basis.