A group of young people enjoyed their first experience of environmental volunteering at Skelton Grange Environment Centre on Wednesday 20th December. The midwinter event gave the volunteers the opportunity to construct a new recycling area for the Centre, and create willow sculptures to decorate the building and wildlife garden.

Skelton Grange Environment Centre is an innovative environmental education project near South Leeds, which is run by BTCV in partnership with National Grid and Leeds City Council. The centre works mostly with primary schools and playschemes, running interactive, active, hands on activities to get children involved in the natural environment. Wednesday's event was supported by volunteering charity V, who aim to get a million 16-25 year olds involved in volunteering by 2010.

The day was a great success, with the young people getting the opportunity to try out volunteering in a friendly environment with no further commitment required. Volunteers enjoyed having the opportunity to make a genuine contribution to the environmental and community value of Skelton Grange, making it an even more inspiring place for children to visit. They also had the chance to hear about how they could get more involved in volunteering in the future if the day had inspired them!

"It was great to be able to give people this opportunity to try out volunteering with BTCV for the first time", said Centre Manager Caroline Crossley. "Everybody really enjoyed the experience, and many were interested in how they could volunteer again in the future".

Midwinter Magic at Skelton Grange