Telford company employees help out at local primary school
Having secured grant funding from a local manufacturing business last year to develop its outdoor learning facilities, a Shropshire primary school received an additional boost recently when employees from the company carried out a book audit and helped prepare the school’s new market garden site.
Telford based Alcoa Fastening Systems (AFS), which donated $45,000 to Windmill Primary School, Brookside through its international Alcoa Foundation Grant, also operates a Month of Service initiative. During October each year people working at the Alcoa business unit locations worldwide volunteer their time to community initiatives in the cities, towns and villages where they live.
While most of the work to establish a conservation and sustainable living area including a hide for viewing wildlife, woodland, orchard and market garden has been completed at the school, the 13 staff, representing a cross section of the AFS workforce, provided physical help to dig over and set up vegetable beds as well as utilising their office skills in auditing school books.
Mark Gibbons, headteacher at Windmill Primary School, which caters for 400 pupils, said: “We are all thrilled with the new hands-on Alcoa Wildlife and Conservation Area, and are proud to have the facilities as part of our school. We hope everything will be ready by the end of the year, including the installation of a wind turbine, and look forward to growing vegetables and harvesting fruit and in 2012. The children are taught natural history in the classroom but to take this out into a real, practical environment not only improves their understanding but is much more exciting! It was also very helpful for the AFS employees to assist with our book audit, rationalising what we had, assessing the date and condition, and organising the correct storage location.”
Lucy Moloney, HR manager at AFS Telford, said: “So far, 16,000 Alcoa volunteers worldwide have been involved in the October 2011 Month of Service. Now in its sixth year, Month of Service is the centrepiece of Alcoa's Volunteer Programs, mobilising its global workforce to make a positive difference in the communities where they live and work. It is the culmination of year-round volunteer efforts by Alcoa employees, who last year gave 720,000 hours of voluntary service – the equivalent of 350 people working full-time. We hope that our work at the Windmill Primary School will help towards finalising the development of its facilities and contribute to the long-term welfare of its pupils.”
