All in a day's work

(Pics Trish Whelan/Kilcullen Diary.)

It took some 250 volunteers to pull off a most ambitious project last Wednesday—the building of a 700 metre, wheelchair-accessible nature trail around the grounds of the Kilcullen Camphill Community, writes Conor McMahon .

At 9am on the day, the task seemed almost impossible. A mountain of gravel had to be transported, spread and compacted onto raw, marshy earth. And it had to be done by 5pm.



Around 220 employees from financial services company Fidelity Investments travelled from Galway and Dublin to volunteer as part of a ‘Difference Day’ teambuilding exercise. Fidelity staff themselves chose to help Camphill Communities Ireland and the Kilcullen community in particular.

“We’ll be the strong backs and the weak minds for the day,” said Travis Carpico of the company's Citywest branch as he addressed a batch of the volunteers. Another 18 local people and a team of Camphill residents and co-workers were on hand to work as well.

The trail was split into 14 sections and each team of around 18 was assigned a separate area to work on. Wheelbarrows, shovels, spades and rakes to transport and spread materials for the trail were provided by Kildare County Council and local contributors.



The first task was to fix down timber beams to align the pathway. Hardcore stone was then used as the base of the path and helped to settle some of the waterlogged areas.

Next, a lighter hardcore was spread. The trail was then topped with a fine, reddish gravel called Ballylusk dust. The layers were then compacted and set to give a solid finish.

I worked with team 13 (just my luck) for the day. Our section was 30 metres in length, making it the shortest part of the trail. But the ground had been badly flooded and was very muddy so we had to lay down quite a lot of material to soak up the water. With well-coordinated teamwork, we got the job done.



Additional volunteers, members of the civil defence and scouts catered for the day. Volunteers were given tea, coffee and scones at tea-break; followed by a lunch of apples, crisps, biscuits and sandwiches. The day finished with a barbeque of chicken, burgers, sausages, chips and salad. There was also beer and wine, soft drinks and, of course, water. The Kilcullen scouts then executed a clean-up job. In the evening, popular Kilcullen band Flock of Budgies played.

“We were blessed with the weather,” was the most popular phrase of the day … “this is much heavier than it looks” was another favourite.

Two large plaques designed by Joe O'Connor were presented to Fidelity Investments for their Dublin and Galway offices as a token of appreciation.

The entire event concluded with a lap of the nature trail, led by Camphill resident Siodhna Kavanagh. Everyone involved was touched by the experience. “I definitely saw some smiles rather than grimaces of pain,” said Travis Carpico.

“It has been great to see that we can pull off something like this together as a community, especially at times like this,” said Mischa Fekete of the Bridge Camphill. Along with Gese Muecke, Mischa helped realise the idea for the nature trail. He also featured in a short film shown to the visitors by John Martin, about the Camphill organisation in Kilcullen over the past 20 years.

The trail is located at the back of An Tearmann and open to the public.