Planit Charity Day at Wairoa School, North Bondi

Planit Software Testing helps organisations prevent and detect issues in their IT delivery. Planits test mission critical systems to minimise their associated risks, control costs and reduce their time to market.

Planit are working with The Centre for Volunteering to develop an employee volunteering policy and to find volunteer placements for their staff. They recently spent the day at Wairoa School in North Bondi in July 2008.

Planit reports on the day:

All the staff affected by Monday's Bank holiday were given two options; either take a day of annual leave or do a day of charity work. We registered with The Centre for Volunteering, an agency that specialises in placing volunteers into charitable activities,  and we were soon notified of the opportunity to attend the special needs school Wairoa in North Bondi to help out for the day. Wairoa is a school for moderate to severe intellectual disabilities and caters for children from the age of four upwards.

Those not put off by the travel out to North Bondi gave up a day to clean, sweep, paint, sort, mop, garden and even undertake a small IT project!

In total we had a team of 18 and there was not a single one of us who didn't feel humbled by the experience. The children were present as it was a normal school day and we saw quite a bit of them at break times. Those who could took an interest in what we were doing but we were told to make sure we closed and locked doors behind us and look after our '‘personal space'.

After a day of hard manual labour the teachers and carers still looked more exhausted than us and I for one take my hat off to the dedication these guys have in their care of others.

When the day was over the school boasted a clean gym, clean bike shed, clean toy room, a weeded garden, files transferred from Mac to PC, a gleaming school bus and two fantastic murals on exterior walls!

We would like to thank every one of you for giving up your time to do this and for showing true commitment and dedication to all of your tasks. The school was very happy with the result and perhaps we made life easier for them all just for a while."

More information

• Visit the Planit Software Testing website
• Contact The Centre for Volunteering on 9261 3600 to find out how you can set up an Employee Volunteering Program for your staff