Chambers saves Ready 4 Action Project

Over the May Day bank holiday weekend more than 140 volunteers gave up their time to work on the annual Ready 4 Action project, a community-led social action project to help vulnerable families and residents of Guildford, organised by the Matrix Trust.

The Ready 4 Action project was started in 2000 and is still one of the biggest annual volunteer projects running in Guildford, even winning a Queen’s Voluntary Award back in 2009. Over the weekend the volunteers (of which over 50 of them were teenagers and young people) tackled over 34 jobs, including clearing 16 gardens and made them usable again and also clearing several paths in Stoke and Stoughton to make them safer for people to use – making a huge difference to the lives of many families in the area.

This year although Surrey County Council had again agreed to sponsor the cost of the green waste, they unfortunately had to withdraw their funding for the tipping of the 30 tonnes of mixed waste due to budget cuts. Unfortunately this meant that Matrix would not have been able to run the event again due to the costs that they would have incurred.

Matrix got in touch with us here at Chambers, and as soon as we heard about the issues that the project was facing we were very happy to offer our services in whatever way we could. Therefore we worked together with Misty Bower, the CEO at Matrix to arrange to supply 2 x 35 yard RoRo containers free of charge which we placed on Bellfields Common for the weekend in order for the mixed waste to be collected in. After the weekend we collected the containers and brought them back to our state of the art materials recovery facility in Slyfield, where our team segregated the paper, wood, metals, cardboard and plastic ready for recycling. Any non-recyclable residue was baled and wrapped to produce a high quality refuse-derived fuel product – therefore achieving 100 per cent diversion from landfill.

Peter Chambers, Chairman and Managing Director at Chambers commented “We are really impressed with the work that Ready 4 Action do and the valuable contribution they make to the community every year. During the course of the weekend the project generates over 30 tonnes of mixed waste which costs in the region of £4000 to dispose of. When we heard that this valuable work might not be able to go ahead this year due to the fact that funding from Surrey County Council for the mixed waste disposal had been withdrawn because of budget cuts, we were more than happy to provide our support free of charge. We have been trading in the Guildford area for over 50 years and like to consider ourselves an integral part of the local community, and so we like being able to put something back by supporting this very worthy cause.”

Speaking about the project Misty Bowers, CEO at Matrix commented “Matrix are extremely grateful for the generosity of Pete Chambers and his team, who stepped in at the last minute to save the day! Without their help, the annual Ready 4 Action project, which provides a way for young people and adults from all walks of life to help their community, would not have been able to run. But with their generous donation, people’s lives were changed – one client told us that “what the volunteers did went way above my expectations – my children can use the garden again”. All the staff at Chambers were so friendly and kind, that they made the whole process easy. Thank you.”

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Guildford Dragon