St Matthews Church in Donnington has a small congregation and keeping on top of the grass cutting etc in the churchyard has become very difficult. The word went out to the community to help and they came good and pulled together.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So we're here at St Matthew's Church in Donington, not the regular gardening team, we've got a gang of people who've come together to help clean up the churchyard and cut the grass, is that right Josie?
00:10That's right, at St Matthew's we've actually got just a small team of dedicated volunteers and we use the community payback team, but generally with the weather this season the grass has been really overgrown and unmanageable.
00:30And so we put out a call for help and Jay Goff, our Telfer Batman, who's very popular in the area, he actually offered to help, he's taken this week to help us in the churchyard every day.
00:51And lots of people have actually, from his rallying call, we've had lots of volunteers bobbing in and out and he's really put our church to the front. It's part of the community, it's important to a lot of people of Donington and I don't think they realise it in actual fact that we are a small congregation, we want to be part of the community, involved in the community, we just need that rallying call from people like Jay.
01:21When Batman puts the word out mate, people come flying. It is in the sky isn't it, yeah. But I mean, yeah, because people go, they might come past and go, oh that churchyard there, that needs the grass cutting, but the truth of it is, it's a lot of work to do isn't it, you know, and that either costs money or people's time and it's not always easy to kind of put those two together.
01:41So everybody at church is actually an unpaid volunteer, contrary to belief. We want to see lots of young people involved in helping us socially and you know, as part of our church.
01:53Well there's a couple of girls that have just had to leave who were part of the gang, you'll see them on the photo in the paper, but I get in his sense it's a nice kind of vibe as well, a nice bit of, you know, people coming together, you all look like you're having a bit of a laugh in between sweating and cutting and digging.
02:09It's brilliant seeing all the new faces and people are so willing, I think it's just communication problems, you know, people, we need that communication and we've done it through Jay and that's rallied people together. We need to maintain that though.
02:22Jay, we'll come and press to you a bit closer then. So what was it then Jay, when the word went out, what was it that you thought, we know what, we need to get on to this?
02:32Yeah, well I saw a thing on Facebook where people were complaining about the state of the graveyard and how long the grass was, but it was all a lot of words and no action. People like to complain but they don't like to be part of the solution.
02:47So I decided to, I had some leave to use and I decided to put the week off and come down and get it sorted. I put a call out on Facebook, we've had loads of people showed up, loads of people lending us their tools, especially lads over here.
03:03Well yeah, we should give out, it's WMB Ground Maintenance. So you lads are doing this off the book, you're not getting paid. I mean that's worthy of a round of applause isn't it.
03:18So what was it lads that kind of drew you in then? You're twins aren't you? Yeah we're twins yeah. So do you argue a lot when you're working then? Not really. I'm speaking as a father of twins you see.
03:33So what was it when you saw that they put the word out that you thought, you know what, we need to get involved in this. Yeah well one of our clients, her name's Jane, she obviously let us know that they were looking for people and we thought we'd come down and help out and we're making it like a monthly thing now, we'll come down once a month.
03:49Oh it's a regular splot, okay. Well done lads. So yeah it's just heart, what's the word, heart-affirming, what's the word I'm looking for guys? Heartwarming, heartwarming. Yeah because we're always hearing bad stories and that but there's still, the community spirit is alive and well in Donington, is that what I'm getting from this? Yeah it does. Well done to all of you guys.
04:19Yay!