Celebrating Guardian Volunteering of 2015

2015 in Numbers

• 24,327 volunteering hours
• For over 300 organisations
• Equivalent to 13 full-time public sector workers
• A social impact value of £343,278

2015 in Stories

We’re always amazed by the brilliant volunteering our guardians get up to. We wanted to share some of their volunteering so we’ve chosen a snapshot of 6 great guardians from 2015.

Hannah

Hannah is a regular volunteer at Organic Lea in North London where she contributes a great amount to the maintenance and development of this community garden space. She has also been using her artistic skills to help out at the educational charity Hackney Pirates!

Alex

Alex is a star volunteer for the Alexander Janson’s Foundation, which seeks to research and find cures for myocarditis. She is a key fundraiser for them, and has contributed to raising over £148,000 in 2015 alone. Highlights include a Santa run, a disco, quiz nights and a rugby evening with Zinzan Brooke. We put her forward for the Halifax Volunteering Award!

Danielle

Danielle has gone from strength to strength with Young Adult Carers in Southend this year. She has become the main facilitator for the group, meaning she has taken on additional recruitment and communication responsibilities, including setting up a blog. Building on this success she was also asked to become a member of Southend Carers Forum and gave a talk at Carers Rights Day!

Pippa

Pippa made a lengthy volunteering trip to Nepal in 2015 with Clowns Without Borders, an organisation that tries to bring smiles and joy back into the lives of children around the world. More recently she has been helping out with Living Words, a literary project aiming to help create poetry alongside people with dementia.

Tom

Tom has been volunteering for an average of 40 hours a month at Stepney City Farm. He looks after various workshops there, with his speciality being the wood workshop where he shares his passion for carving wooden spoons. He has played a vital role in developing these workshops as a platform, and enjoys interacting with the public and educating them about traditional crafts.

Peter

Peter is a skilled facilitator with Sycamore Tree, where he helps to build trust amongst prisoners and victims of crime in group sessions. He has been doing this for around 20 hours a month and thoroughly enjoys it. He is appreciated as an enthusiastic and punctual volunteer.