Skip to main content

Royal Holloway hosts Festival of Volunteering 2023

Royal Holloway hosts Festival of Volunteering 2023

  • Date02 October 2023

Royal Holloway, University of London, hosted the Festival of Volunteering on Wednesday 20 September, during the University’s Welcome Week.

Fovcroppedcm

The festival, which took place within Founder’s Square, was launched by the Mayor of Runnymede, Cllr Shannon Saise-Marshall and sponsored by Challenges Abroad, a charity that supports community development and volunteering abroad opportunities in some of the poorest regions of the world.

The all-day event encouraged both students and staff to get involved with volunteering opportunities available at Royal Holloway, and to be part of the University’s ever growing voluntary presence in the local community.

The festival had many voluntary activities available for students to sign up to including Community Action, Social Action, Community Research, Volunteering Abroad and Sports Volunteering.

On the day, there were 16 student led projects to sample, such as the Community Garden, where a team of volunteers take care of a garden and are part of many events including planting, how to DIY your own greenhouse and how to make your own plant hangers. Other projects included ESOL Tutoring where students work with Syrian, Afghan and Ukrainian refugees to improve their English skills. There were also 42 community partner organisations including Voluntary Support North Surrey, UCE Charity Bookstall, Runnymede Foodbank, the Prison Advice and Care Trust and many more.

Luke Russell, Volunteering Manager said:

“While the weather was not on our side, we had a really fantastic day at the Festival of Volunteering. We had over 1,300 students visit the Community Partners on Founders Square and a further 2,500 people passing through the Davison Building where our Social Action project stalls were situated. It is always great to bring new organisations to Royal Holloway as well as our longstanding community partners, and we are really hopeful that we will see some great volunteering this academic year as a result.”

Related topics

Explore Royal Holloway

Get help paying for your studies at Royal Holloway through a range of scholarships and bursaries.

There are lots of exciting ways to get involved at Royal Holloway. Discover new interests and enjoy existing ones.

Heading to university is exciting. Finding the right place to live will get you off to a good start.

Whether you need support with your health or practical advice on budgeting or finding part-time work, we can help.

Discover more about our academic departments and schools.

Find out why Royal Holloway is in the top 25% of UK universities for research rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

Royal Holloway is a research intensive university and our academics collaborate across disciplines to achieve excellence.

Discover world-class research at Royal Holloway.

Discover more about who we are today, and our vision for the future.

Royal Holloway began as two pioneering colleges for the education of women in the 19th century, and their spirit lives on today.

We’ve played a role in thousands of careers, some of them particularly remarkable.

Find about our decision-making processes and the people who lead and manage Royal Holloway today.