A couple of weeks ago, the Environment Committee as well as other Riccarton students and staff took part in another public volunteer opportunity, based near Victoria Park in the Port Hills.

Our Riccarton group went right at the Sign of the Kiwi and worked on some walking tracks off the road. We spent the day picking up litter which was mostly glass and cans. We had a few other interesting finds such as a car door, a snorkel and a mysteriously large rabbit skull.

We took two vans from school as well as cars for transport and once again met Di Carter and a team of other volunteer City Council instructors who showed us what to do.

The weather was much nicer this time and time seemed to move rather quickly. The volunteer instructor who was with us thought it would be unlikely that we would find much rubbish as high as we were on the hills. To our disappointment, there was a lot more than expected, but with everyone’s help, our area of the hills looked spotless after three hours of hard work.

Everyone who helped did an excellent job and we will be looking forward to the next volunteer day which will be a planting day and once again open to anyone else from the school to join.

Thank you to Mr Paewai and Matua Mike for being incredible chauffeurs and joining in with the volunteer team, as well as Mrs Jermy who tagged along with a handy rubbish-picker-upper, and Mr Saunders who brought along his assistants.

We hope to continue doing similar activities throughout the year and contribute to all the positive changes that are happening in Christchurch.

Written by Abbey Meiritz-Reid joined by the Environment committee and friends: Kate Stedman, Alana Hillary, Olivia Kennington, Dikshya Chand, Chloe Kang, Will Eason, Daniel Wei, Yunru Huang, Ruby Perring, Georgina Fee, Elisha Day, Sarah Seeley, Kelsey Chambers, Maddie Grose, Alex Corboy, Ruadri Lonie, Sian O’Connell, Thea Mataiti, Rhiannon Giles, Shayla Giles, Lilian Renwick, Carmen Lionnet, Mr and Mrs Lionnet.