2 people got up really early (4:30 am) to help out with the YMCA Sleep Easy morning clear up. Many people had built shelters out of cardboard boxes, tarpaulin, hope and sticky tape. There were lots of blurry eyes and sleepy yawns as we helped clean up the storage area and makeshift camp of all cardboard into 2 large recycling bins that were thoughtfully placed as far away as possible. Some might say that the payoff was the great feeling of helping out at such a thought provoking event, others claim it was the cheeky free burger.

Pete, Ashley, Peter, Rachel and first timer to GoodGym Derby Becky helped organise the YMCA Derbyshire Sleep Easy on the night of the fundraising event.

The group helped get everyone parked up safely, signposted attendees where they needed to register on the night and helped attendees to select the most insulating looking pieces of cardboard for their shelters. They managed to have a chat about GoodGym Derby when attendees were coming to get hot drinks or their cardboard and help was much appreciated by the YMCA Derbyshire team headed up by Catherine.

The fundraising target is £30,000 for 2022 and the event has raised just under £18,000 by the afternoon post-event.

Great to have a catchup with some of the members and see Peter and Becky for the first time with GoodGym Derby, hopefully they'll be at some future events (Becky is a passionate litter picker :))

Answers on a postcard if you know any of the volunteers that helped out and can see them on the group photo.

Thanks to everyone who came along to help out.

Despite a very damp start to the day 8 intrepid GoodGymers were keen to get out in the fresh air and get back to doing some good!

To kick start their Saturday, 5 of our group decided to top and tail the mission with a 4 mile run and they all arrived warmed up and raring to go!

Today's community mission was at Derby YMCA where we were helping to tidy up and paint an outdoor community garden space.

We quickly set to work litter picking, turning over the soil and learning a new technique in fence painting with dustpan brushes, which proved to be more effective than expected!

We were joined by two of the YMCA residents who were a fantastic addition to the team and definitely helped to keep us all motivated. It was great to learn about all the residents who are helped by YMCA and the great work that they do across Derby.

After a whirlwind couple of hours we managed to dodge the rain, dig over the soil, re-painted the raised beds, planted flowers, spread out the bark and cleared the garden of rubbish!

A huge thanks to YMCA for inviting us to help out and thank you to Rachel for connecting us with them. We all agreed it was great to be back together again and we can't wait to get back out running very soon!!