This week is Volunteers’ Week (1st – 7th June 2021), and this year, perhaps more than ever before, we want to thank all the people who support Home-Start Royston, Buntingford & South Cambridgeshire (HSRBSC) in a voluntary capacity.
We have over 60 volunteers attached to HSRBSC, helping us in various ways, including management, finance, family support, fundraising, HR, and many other areas. This support ultimately helps HSRBSC be the best we can be, making a positive difference in the lives of many families in our local community.
Last year, collectively, our volunteers gave us over 1700 hours of their time!! Rising to the challenges that COVID-19 threw at us, we saw our volunteers:
- get up to date with tech and online communications,
- write stories,
- attend online meetings,
- share craft activities,
- video themselves,
- make deliveries,
- gardening,
- wrapping presents,
- painting the office,
- source funding, and a whole host of other activities.
They have consistently found creative and innovative ways to keep on doing what was needed to help local families at one of the most challenging times of their lives.
The positivity and enthusiasm of our volunteers is something that is so warmly received by the staff team too. We feel very fortunate to have had the pleasure of getting to know our volunteers. Over the last year, we have all taken strength and encouragement from their positivity and can-do attitude, even when it’s suddenly started blowing a gale and pouring with rain during one of our outdoor Family Group sessions!
And the families that we support have such positive things to say about their volunteer too:
Our volunteers give their time generously, and we hope that, in turn, we are supporting them to gain something from their experience of being a volunteer for HSRBSC. We work hard to help them realise their worth, say thank you, and find ways to make their experience with us the best it can be. It makes all our effort worthwhile when we are told things like:
The definition of ‘volunteer’ in the Cambridge English Dictionary is:
A person who does something, especially helping other people, willingly and without being forced or paid to do it.
All that is true, but our volunteers mean so much more to us than that definition. We absolutely would not be here if it weren’t for our volunteers; they are the Heart of Home-Start, helping us in everything we do and achieve. In writing this blog, I came across this quote by an unknown author:
If you want to touch the past, touch a rock. If you want to touch the present, touch a flower. If you want to touch the future, touch a life.
Without any hesitation, I know that our volunteers touch lives. They are contributing to better futures for local families and children, and we are so very grateful to each and every one of them!
