National Trust takes a leap into volunteering

The Trust, which benefits from the help of 62,000 volunteers, is using February 29 to celebrate the importance of voluntary work and mark the 100th anniversary of the death of founder Octavia Hill, who championed volunteering.

Staff, including director-general Dame Fiona Reynolds, will be helping out with local charities, schools, campaigns and other efforts to assist communities.

Visitors to National Trust properties due to open on February 29 will not be turned away by “closed” signs, however, with staff at stately homes, castles and open farms taking their “local leap” days when they have the chance.

Office staff will spend the day on activities ranging from litter picking in town centres to tree planting, decorating schools and hospices and even helping other charities complete grant applications.

Dame Fiona, who said she would be spending the day mucking out at her local Riding for the Disabled stables, said: “The Trust knows first-hand how important volunteering is. We simply couldn’t function without our 62,000 volunteers.

“The sheer spread of the places we look after means that we have close links with communities the length and breadth of the country.

“Through local leap we want to get to know our local communities even better, and build new relationships into the future.”

Dame Fiona also said the Trust wanted to celebrate the centenary of the death of Octavia Hill, an “extraordinary woman” who had “wanted to make sure that an organisation could look after the special, beautiful places that she and her co-founders loved”.