Citi volunteers support family fun during Global Community Week

Haven House and Richard House Children’s Hospices welcomed over 270 Citi volunteers to take on a variety of gardening and maintenance tasks in preparation for family fun days at both hospices on Saturday 11 June.

Wednesday 8 June

30 staff from the HR department visited Haven House and took on the tasks of clearing out weeds from the flowerbeds, tidying up the Oak garden, planting the hanging baskets, creating arts and crafts for the weekend and preparing the bandstand and garden furniture for painting. One group had the tough task of removing an old tree stump from the Buddies area.

Despite the torrential rain, one volunteer said that the best thing about the day was:

Having fun with colleagues while doing something worthwhile with a demonstrable result.

Thank you to Paige Horton and Kate Wilton for arranging the day.

40 staff from the UK Consumer and International Personal Bank teams came to Richard House and volunteered inside the hospice and in its gardens. Volunteers focused on creative tasks in preparation for the Rainforest Activity Day on Saturday, such as making vines, painting shoeboxes and wild animals and helping hospice staff to make sure everything was ready for family activities. The volunteers in the hospice gardens helped with preparations by weeding, deadheading plants, clearing/sweeping paths, and cutting back hedges and bushes.

Thursday 9 June

Further staff from the UK Consumer and International Personal Bank teams visited Richard House. They courageously took on the task of our transforming our woodland paths, as well as weeding, deadheading plants and cutting back the bushes on our path of life in preparation for weekend’s Rainforest Activity Day.

Thank you to Rachelle Gaskell for coordinating the volunteering on Wednesday and Thursday.

Friday 10 June

80 staff from the CIB (Corporate Investment Banking) and PB (Private Bank) teams joined Haven House to get the gardens ready for their Mad-Hatters Tea Party on Saturday.

Tasks included planting red, white and blue flowerbeds, painting the ‘Jolly Haven’ (the pirate ship playground), tidying up the marquee and putting up gazebos, cleaning equipment, setting up the family areas for the party and decorating the gardens with bunting and Alice in Wonderland-themed flamingos, butterflies, clocks and cake.

There was no chance to relax as everything had to be finished ready for the party the next day, including the final touches to the green leaves on the basket swing in the playground. 

Thank you to Charlotte Day and Alexandra Barnes for arranging the day.

Much help was needed to make sure everything was ready for the Rainforest Activity Day. Over 50 strong volunteers from Compliance and Enterprise Supply Chain departments joined Richard House staff in transforming the hospice into a rainforest.

Tasks included creating paper vines and animals (lots and lots of leaves), creating photo booth props, putting up the marquees, cleaning outdoor toys, decorating the dining and daily care areas for the party, making sure there were vines, monkeys and snakes all around the hospice. As well as completing the turning over and flattening of our woodland paths (no easy task), meticulously weeding the paving stones and putting the final touches to the garden decorations. All garden toys and equipment were cleaned, climbing frames were moved out of the way of the marquees, and the seaside area is clean and weed free.

Despite the hard work, one volunteer said that,

It was a fantastic team building opportunity! We spent the day having fun but knowing it was for a good cause!

Special thanks to Sam Long, Natalie Mcmanus and Zoe Waters for arranging the day.

Saturday 11 June

Haven House hosted a Mad-Hatters Tea Party for 32 families, with huge support from Citi staff in creating a family-focused, fun event.

As well as a BBQ, guests enjoyed a visit from Paradise Wildlife Park and the Giggle Doctors. Everyone also took advantage of our creative face-painters.

Citi teams ran a variety of festival style games for children including hook-a-duck and a hoopla. The penalty shoot-out area and animal balloons and masks were also incredibly popular. Our Buddies also performed a few songs from our garden stage with our resident music therapist. 

One of our families said of the event:

This is such a lovely idea to have this for the families, my child is having such a great time here with the other siblings and we can just sit and relax with a cup of tea and cake with him and his nan and grandad.

Another commented:

Thank you again for inviting us to your family tea party, we all had such a lovely time, it’s so rare we all get to go out as a family.

Richard House hosted the Rainforest Activity Day to celebrate our families and volunteers. This event would not been possible without the fantastic support of Citi and Bloomberg staff.

We had an amazing array of rainforest food in the Snack Shack including edible insects and interestingly coloured drinks. The sensory tent had all the sounds, smells and sensations of the rainforest, including a fantastic sensory story about Kofi & the magic shaker.

Guests enjoyed the magical interactive theatrical entertainment and music by the Half Moon Theatre and the face painting, bouncy castle, photo booth and water play were very popular activities with both children and adults. Inside the hospice there were opportunities for everyone to get creative in making their own sensory rainforest scenes and feather head-dresses. In the afternoon ZooLab brought the rainforest into the hospice with their display of giant African land snails, luminous blue scorpions, snakes, tarantulas and rats.

To mark the Queen’s birthday, we hosted a ‘Queenie’ quiz that got rather competitive.

Our feedback tree was full of lovely experiences, one of our mums said:

We had a lovely day. My child enjoyed face painting, arts and crafts and had loads of fun touching the reptiles!

A volunteer also commented:

Amazing work!!! I and my husband had a fantastic day. It’s a wonderful feeling to put a smile on the children’s face.

Thank you to everyone who attended the event and supported the hospices in the lead-up. We couldn’t have put on such good events without Citi support.

You can view the Haven House photographs from the event on their facebook page. 

You can the Richard House photographs from the event on their facebook page.