CEMEX lend a hand at adventure playground

Company’s staff help dig path in Thames Valley Adventure Playground’s new sensory garden

THE national reserves team at CEMEX UK has helped to dig a path in a new sensory garden at the Thames Valley Adventure Playground in Taplow, Berkshire.

Nine colleagues volunteered as part of the company’s Lendahand scheme, where employees are given paid leave to help in the community. The playground organizers needed a hand to lay a path and repair and decorate a boat that will soon become a pirate ship.

The path is designed as a tactile experience with different surface textures using a range of materials such as stones and tiles, and creating different patterns in the concrete with hand prints.

‘It was a brilliant day and a real team effort to excavate the path in time for the Readymix concrete delivery,’ commented Stephen Redwood, national reserves development director.

‘Everybody worked so hard to complete the task and to demonstrate our desire to be Best for Communities. We hope that everyone visiting the playground, which is more than 13,500 visitors a year, gets tremendous enjoyment and benefit from it.’

In 2013 the Lendahand volunteering scheme resulted in more than 100 days spent on a range of community projects, including planting Spring bulbs in a local park, repairs and decoration at a children’s hospice, and restoration work at a nature reserve.

Thames Valley Adventure Playground is open to anyone with a special need, whether child or adult, and their families. The 2.5-acre site has been open since 1982 and offers a wide range of adventurous, therapeutic and educational play activities.