Lisa lives with her husband and three border collies in rural Gateshead Tyne and Wear. An avid lover of the great outdoors, she and her husband enjoy trying to tire out their energetic dogs with long countryside walks.
No stranger to volunteering, Lisa has supported numerous local charities over the years including outreach support to homeless people and assisting at food banks. During national lockdowns in the pandemic, Lisa stepped up to volunteer for her local mutual aid group.
Lisa explained how much she enjoyed being able to support people self-isolating by delivering prescriptions and carrying out shopping on their behalf.
As Covid restrictions eased, Lisa knew she wanted to volunteer somewhere longer term that directly benefited her community. Lisa attended her first packing session for Feeding Families after seeing a volunteering advert at her local community centre. Based in the North East of England, Feeding Families offer support, hope and security to those experiencing food poverty.
Remembering her first volunteering experience with Feeding Families, Lisa said “as we all shared a cuppa and a bit of banter before starting the session, I realised that we all turned up because we had a shared interest in food poverty or social need and we all had time on our hands. We keep coming back every week because, in truth, it's just a really lovely, happy place to work!”
18 months later and Lisa is volunteering once a week. Her role mainly involves helping to sort and organise packages that are then donated to people in need.
Lisa spoke to us about how beneficial volunteering has been for increasing her social networks by reflecting on how all the volunteers have become firm friends and they have a laugh during volunteering sessions.
“We have a little happy band on a Wednesday, everyone is like-minded, and we’re all passionate about what we do.”
Sharing her experiences of using Volunteero, Lisa tells us
“Volunteero is spot on. It’s a dead-simple app. I logged on and secured all my Wednesday shifts in advance. I do it a couple of months in advance. It helps me plan my time.”
Volunteero is a platform that helps charities manage volunteers more effectively. If you’d like to learn more, please book a demo or get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
