Residents at a sheltered housing scheme in York will be able to enjoy the sunshine and social space this summer after we donned our wellies and spruced up their garden as part of the York Cares Big Community Challenge.

We joined a host of other York businesses to improve outdoor spaces at various local community organisations. The Big Community Challenge aims to showcase the positive impact a green environment can have on health, wellbeing and social inclusion.

Caroline Wilcock, volunteering project officer for York Cares, said: “Studies have shown that spending time in green, outdoor space has countless health and wellbeing benefits for individuals, including a reduction in depression, anxiety and stress related symptoms and an improvement in dementia-related symptoms.
 
“This will be the eleventh annual Big Community Challenge and we are so pleased to see that employee volunteering is still going strong in York. From two companies taking part in 2008, this year we have teams from 14 companies taking time to give something back to the city.”

As well as literally getting our hands dirty by digging, removing weeds and planting a new lawn, we also provided York Cares with PR support which resulted in local media coverage including That's York TV.