Rhodar team delivers WellChild Garden Transformation
Posted on in Company News
Rhodar’s long term support for the fantastic WellChild charity continued apace last week with a team delivering an ambitious transformational garden project in Rochdale – to create a safe play environment, so that 6-year-old Lily, who has severe health and mobility challenges, can enjoy time outdoors with her family.
Part of our ‘Venture and Volunteer’ Charity initiative with WellChild, this is the fourth garden project we’ve delivered for the charity in recent years – each one special and physically challenging in its own way … but always incredibly rewarding for those involved when they witness, first-hand, the real impact it will have on the life of the child and their family.
Lily’s garden project took place over two days, with 21 staff coming together from across Rhodar’s UK offices – split into two different teams working on the project over the Tuesday and Wednesday…
Our task was to take the inaccessible sloping grass garden area and create a large artificial grass zone, a safe pathway for a wheelchair, a wooden decked area with parasol, pebble borders all around…and finish the project with lumi-garden lights and to arrange Lily’s sensory activity stands along the edges of the garden for easy access.
Overseeing delivery of the garden and working alongside us for the two days was WellChild’s fantastic Helping Hands Project Leader Luke Brown.
Following a full briefing, unloading and task allocation, Day 1, is always classed as the ‘heavy-lifting’ day and this one was no exception….
…digging up the turf …. which this year proved even more of a challenge as the heavens opened and it rained for most of the day, making the turf that bit heavier!
… and laying anti-weed sheets and shovelling/wheelbarrowing tonnes of base gravel into the artificial grass zone … this took most of the day to complete…
…plus starting to build the wooden border frame for the grass zone to fit across…and the decking area to be built on…
Day 2’s team started where the Day 1 team left off… with lots of shovelling and wheel barrowing several more tonnes of gravel to complete the base fill…
… and then using the popular ‘Whacker-plate’ to compress the material to the right compaction and level….
… adding and raking the tonnes of sand and precisely screeding and compacting it numerous times to create the exact level…a science in itself!
While this was happening, another team did a great job building the frame and laying the decking area at the top of the garden…
…whilst another filled and compressed the new pathway leading to the decking….
…next the huge roll of artificial grass was brought round and carefully rolled across the prepared surface…
…the edges cut and fixed to the outer frame and the grass given a good brushing with a rotary ‘brusher’!
…the other elements such as laying the decorative pebbles around the edging, building the sun parasol, and setting up the lights and lily’s sensory tables were then completed…
… and finally… a big tidy up and clean of the site….
Then, as the late afternoon sun came out and shone brightly, we were able to reveal the finished garden to Lily and her Mum, who was clearly delighted with the final result: the garden would now be well used, she said, and just in time for Lilly to enjoy the full summer!
So, a huge thank you to all of the Rhodar team members who got involved and physically stuck into this project over the two days…a great result! And thanks to Luke from WellChild for his guidance and support throughout!
(If your company is interested in doing similar projects for the amazing WellChild charity, please get in touch with them at: info@wellchild.org.uk )
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