Seventeen team members from Pure’s Ipswich office spent the day volunteering for the Papworth Trust on Friday (5 August) and transformed the gardens of two local residents supported by the charity.

The corporate volunteering day was the latest activity in Pure’s anniversary campaign to mark a decade since the professional recruitment agency first opened its Ipswich office. The team has pledged to take part in, or organise, a series of different events to support 10 different local charities throughout 2016. Pure contacted The Papworth Trust, which supports disabled and older people living in the region, to see how they could help and were asked to complete garden makeovers for two of its home-care clients.

The Ipswich office split into two groups to take on the challenge, with one spending the morning gardening and the second group taking over in the afternoon. Both gardens, situated on the outskirts of Ipswich, needed a lot of attention to make them relaxing and enjoyable spaces again. But, by the time the teams had spent the day painting fences and planters, cutting back overgrown bushes, weeding, mowing, pressure washing and planting, both gardens were completely transformed.

Lucy Plumb, Executive Assistant at Pure and part of the volunteering team, said: “Everyone was in really good spirits and keen to get stuck in to the challenge. It was a great team building exercise and we hope that by giving up just one day of our time we will have helped to make a long-term difference for these residents.”

Other local charities which have already benefited from Pure’s 10-year-anniversary campaign include East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices, East Anglian Air Ambulance, St Helena’s Hospice, Brightstars and Ormiston Families.