Sykes Holiday Cottages

Volunteering at Chester Zoo with Sykes

From our Sykes Holiday Cottages, Chester HQ, a huge number of our staff have spent their volunteering days helping the local community at Chester Zoo.

Over 7 days, we had 140 volunteers in total from the Sykes Family. Our staff spent their day ensuring that the zoo animals had enough food for the winter period, resulting in a total of 28 barrels of feed. This amount will sustain the giraffes for at least 3 weeks over the winter!

Find out more about our time volunteering with Chester Zoo below…


Check out our video to see what our staff got up to during their time volunteering at Chester Zoo

“With the new technique we have used this year of stripping the bark and hand picking the leaves, a group would tend to make around 4 barrels per day so we can say around 28 barrels over the 7 days which would feed the giraffes for around 3 weeks!”
Tanya Simpson – Individual Giving Specialist at Chester Zoo


What our Volunteers have to say


It was great meeting people from other departments who I wouldn’t or haven’t met before and learning about how much work goes into feeding the 20k animals at the zoo!”
Pete Edwards – Business Dev Manager

“We were able to understand what’s involved behind the scenes of the zoo and the food preparation for the animals. I also feel like we have undoubtedly supported a huge project which will ultimately really help the team at the zoo.”
Georgia Cole – Internal Comms and Engagement Partner

“We helped a great local charity and had fun with colleagues outdoors, doing something completely different to my day job.”
Michael Graham – Chief Financial Officer


Check out our Impact blogs to see what else we’re up to. On our About Us page, you can also learn more about Sykes’ commitment to making a positive social and environmental impact!