THE ARK Stubbington and Marwell Wildlife Park had volunteers from Southern Co-op on hand last month.

More than 25 volunteers from Southern Co-op’s Finance, Commercial Operations, and Trading and Formats departments, based at Lakeside in Portsmouth, were on hand to work at the two sites.

Marwell Zoo saw these colleagues start off their work by raking and planting seeds to create a wild flower meadow on a field which had been cultivated for farming, in an attempt to make the field look how it did 400 years ago.

Wendy Hall, Merchandise Specialist at Southern Co-op, said: “The zoo is trying to return the field back to how it was over 400 years ago. The weather was hot and the work was hard, raking the land to give the seeds more of a chance to take.

“However, the team managed to plough and sow the whole field before lunch! The efforts of our work will take at least seven years to grow and reseed before a full meadow will bloom.

“The day was very physical, educational and extremely rewarding which bought us together as a team. We all slept very well that evening!”

After this was over the team put started collecting food for the animals in the winter time.

They pulled leaves off branches, which would be frozen and fed to the animals during the winter period.

The RSPCA's site in Stubbington saw the finance team spend a morning painting fences and sheds, before clearing foliage. They were then rewarded with the treat of taking the rescued dogs for their "walkies."

Southern Co-op is a large, regional independent co-operative operating over 250 food and funeral branches across the south of England. They do a lot of fundraising for local charities, supporting environmental and community owned organisations and also work with local food producers.