Every week in parks around the world a parkrun takes place, a free, timed 5km run which is solely reliant on volunteers. I am volunteering at the one in Orpington. Up to 200 people run every week, rain or shine. Everyone, from the fittest runners to novices turn up and there is a great community feel there.
For me, the day begins at 8:30am I help set up the course and then at 9am the run starts. I then give out finish tokens to the runners, scan barcodes (they help to track your progress per run online) or do the timekeeping. I’m normally finished by 10:00, so it’s really not too demanding. Sometimes there are even cakes at the end!
I’m doing this for the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award that requires you to do at least 3 months of volunteering. Surprisingly, it was very hard for me to find anywhere to volunteer, everywhere saying I was too young. Originally, I thought it would be easy to find volunteering but to apply for any voluntary work at a place like a charity shop a lot of paperwork needs to be filled out, so I was frequently turned away and told to come back when I was older.
Thankfully, I was not turned away by the parkrun. I would recommend that anyone comes to a parkrun, to volunteer or to run. It is a worthy cause and volunteering there gives me an immense feeling of satisfaction.
Susanna Whitlock, Charles Darwin School
