Every little helps as Tesco volunteers pitch in to transform school play area

Managers at Royston’s Tesco Extra had a purple patch of productivity on Monday when they swapped their supermarket day jobs for a school makeover.

In total 15 people from the store’s management team descended on Therfield First School in The Causeway to restore the outside play area with a touch of purple paint – the colour of the school uniform and logo.

The outside classroom and surrounding fences got the desired treatment as part of Tesco’s ‘supporting our local community plan’, and afterwards Therfield headteacher Tara McGovern said: “This project came following Tesco’s recent support with our harvest community project, and I cannot believe the generosity of time and resources from Tesco towards our small school.

“The painting project has completely lifted the outside appearance of the school and I couldn’t be happier. I am excited to see the reaction from our children and parents.

“Everybody worked so hard during their time here and we could literally see the transformation taking place before our eyes!”

Tesco Royston’s store manager Cliff Ingles said: “Our store’s team take great pride in being part of these projects and contributing to the community of which we are a big part of. This is just one of the many community projects which we have enjoyed supporting.”

Eight-year-old Year 8 pupil Sasha Askew described it as ‘very colourful’ and said that it ‘looked brand new’.

Chair of governors Dan Jones added: “We are delighted and very impressed that managers from our local Tesco, as part of a major international company, are showing such personal and corporate care for their local community facilities.

“This is a heart-warming and generous gesture in our busy commercial world.”