A GROUP of Penarth bank workers left the office behind for a day to help out a farm.
Barclays Bank in Penarth were part of a team who assisted with the building of walls and fences at one of the Vale's best-loved charities, the Amelia Trust Farm.
John King, branch manager of Barclays on Windsor Road said: "We are delighted to be able to make a difference within the community in which we all work and live. Everybody wins from a project like this, the team have had fun and achieved something to be proud of and we've given a hand to a deserving cause."
John Griffiths from Amelia Trust said: "I'd like to thank the staff from Barclays for their tremendous effort and hard work which has really made a difference to everyone who uses and visits the trust."
The Barclays team received funds totalling £4,000 to help with material costs of the refurbishment through Barclays Volunteering Group Scheme. It also donates one percent of its UK pre-tax profits to community causes each year. In 2003, this amounted to over £32 million, making Barclays one of the UK's largest corporate contributors to the community.
The 24 members of Barclays' staff carried out a variety of tasks, which included site clearance, fencing, wall building, tree planting, and digging to improve access to various parts of the farm.
Project Co-ordinator at Amelia Trust Farm, Ian Wareing said: "It is really useful for us to have a group like this to help us finish work off. Without such a large number of people we would have to use the young volunteers over a period of a few weeks to complete this work."
The Amelia Trust Farm was set up 12 years ago as a project to turn the farm back into a working site. Today it is a place where young people come to be educated. Some 60 or so youngsters with varying degrees of challenging behaviour visit the farm at one time.
