Charlotte and Rachel went to Growbaby and helped sort the nappies, toys and clothes into good order so families can collect with ease.

Rachel and Charlotte had a great volunteering day at Growbaby helping to unpack the mountains of donations that have started to come in now that the Hub is open again. Clothes, coats, toys and baby equipment were safely stowed away so that mums and dads could pop in and take what they needed. We'll be back!

Assisted by storm Darragh the morning GoodGym team were blown to Surbiton High for a very important mission to sort and pack presents for 1,800 children and young people who are under the care of a social worker.

Claire, Julie and Jemma started off by sorting out the books into age categories whilst Mel, Petra, Hannah and Natasha sorted out the toys.

When the van arrived it was all hands on deck to get more bags and boxes of gifts into the hall to be sorted.

Present sorted in to age categories we were joined by Frank and given our instructions on how to go ‘shopping’!

And off we went on a shopping frenzy labelling up the bags, finding presents from play-dough to Lynx deodorant to Ronald Dahl classics plus some winter warmers.

After plenty of shopping the pizza arrived and it was time for a well earned break and to hand over to the afternoon team.

A huge welcome to Hannah, Natasha and Frank on their first mission and we hope to see you again soon.

We had a good workout this morning! We twice loaded the Growbaby van full of toys (and Petra's mini!) so it could be taken to the Growbaby present sorting day for kids that need additional support. We lugged boxes down the stairs and even used a dolly to move bigger boxes to the van.

A great way to start the morning and lovely to meet you, Jacky on your first task! Will see you in the afternoon for the main present sorting event.

We had a great workout with Rachel, Jane and Melissa making a 3 way chain to move towers of boxed donations for summer (from BBQ kits to cool boxes to Hellmans out of date Euros bucket hats) to the back of the storage facility. And to make way for the 1000s of Xmas gifts donated to Grow-baby.

We got all the boxes of gifts of new toys, games, clothes ready for loading for Growbaby’s annual Christmas event next Saturday. GoodGym will be back for that session to help Santa bag up the presents so that children in care around the borough have something to open on Christmas Day.

You can sign up for next Saturday’s morning or afternoon sessions here:

Can you help Father Christmas sort the presents? Morning session - Sort and order donated Christmas pressies for kids in care https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/can-you-help-father-christmas-sort-the-presents-morning-session

Collaboration between DLAG & GoodGym for GrowBaby couldn’t have gone better! Petra collected donatiomd from DLaG stall after their afternoon shift and met Dave at GrowBaby to move them from the car, LJ sort them into categories and take the boxes downstairs where they will be moved into their final home later. All in all, 234 items worth £450 were donated by generous people of Surbiton via DLaG and transported and sorted by GoogGym!