A group of volunteer runners gathered at the Sainsbury's in Kingston to do some bag packing for good(gym)ness sa(c)ke in exchange for donations to support the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity.

Rainbow Trust supports families who have a child aged 0-18 years with a life threatening or terminal illness. The Family Support Workers provide a life line to these families and children. They bring support and help to families who so desperately need it at home, in hospital and in the community.

The first shift was filled by a team of seven spread across the row of tills to ask the customers if they would lettuce help them pack their shopping. A few grateful customers told us that they thought it was a grape idea and donated generously. While many customers were determined to stick to their own packing systems and declined our help, they did kindly donate anyway. Samia and Laura took on a new strategy and eagerly met customers approaching the tills to unpack their trolleys before they’d made it to the bagging stage! Nicky did an expert job with the photography in between her smiley bag packing duties. Since all tills were covered with help being offered, Rob found a more useful spot and stationed himself at the door with a donation pot, even convincing his mum to part with her change. While the packing jobs seemed light, some volunteers set out to scan the shop floor to hand out stickers from the Rainbow Trust to any children that keenly accepted them.

A big thank you to Sainsbury’s Surrey Basin for welcoming us to support the Rainbow Trust and giving us space to store our bags. Well done to everyone who was able to give their time this Saturday afternoon offering to pack customers' groceries for donations for this important charity. It was lovely to see Jacqueline, Milla, Lorena and Matthew (solo) joining us for their first community mission.

I think we can all agree it was cold and a bit early for a Sunday, but it was light so we could see all the lovely Goodgym runners faces without a head torch. We also weedy wanted to get stuck in to the task. There was gonna be no backs to the wall today so with a brisk warm up waking up every muscle for running and more. We set off for an easy run, oh but wait...there's a hill!

Skipping into Sunday like....#goodgym #running #warmup #doinggood #volunteering #starterrun #Richmond pic.twitter.com/qEF6ubJdpk

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) January 27, 2019

The cold didn't bother us by the time we got to the top and now we can descend upon our task to get the weeds off the wall.

This got the blood moving on a cold day ...getting ready for action!#goodgym #warmup #runtodogood #volunteering #richmondgreen #Richmond pic.twitter.com/6aGhvpxFqq

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) January 27, 2019

These weeds had been winking at us for many a Monday nights run but at last we had the tools in place and a magnificent 17 of us to put them in there place as well.

Many hands made light work, we even had time to pat a few dogs, (guest appearance from Shakira). We did as much as we could until we ran out of bags. So we had a quick tidy up and walkers and runners made a speedy return to the warmth of the lovely Wholefoods, and some undercover stretching (those that were there will know what I mean).

We gave Jack and Caroline a cheer on their first GG Richmond run. We synchronised Stravas and had a "standing" elevation We then patted each other on the back for a job well done

Hot chocolate done bring on the 10km tomorrow

Well done everyone on an easy Sunday morning

Big welcome to Lorna on your first Goodgym run and congrats to Laura on 50 good deeds.

ALSO a big congrats to everyone at Richmond for a huge effort - deeds and kilometres in the bag! We will be celebrating all our hard work on 4th Feb - find out more here

A little agility drill and a whole lot of fun! #goodgym #richmond #richmondgreen #running #drills #warmup pic.twitter.com/Ar6I6TG0PL

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) January 27, 2019