Doing WHAT for free?!

I am so excited about this years National Volunteers' Week as it is such a great opportunity to shout about how brilliant volunteers are and highlight what a varied and often quite challenging roles they do.

I am pleased that for once, I've been organised - often (I have to confess), that the lead up to National Volunteers' Week has passed me by, and like some other events, the fact that nationally and locally publicity about different events starts to step up just before it, its often only then I notice that its coming up. This isn't because I don't think its important, its often about competing priorities and all too often, constantly working away on what ever presents itself in my in tray! BUT note to self, I have now made sure its firmly fixed in the annual events diary to ensure we give it the attention it deserves!

SAFE@LAST has approximately 170+ volunteers on its database! WOW!
This includes dedicated volunteers that do a range of very different things: from volunteers who bake cakes and gorgeous food for occasional events (maybe a couple of times every few months), to people who volunteer on our childrens helpline on a weekly basis, listening to children at risk through running away and hearing their stories about abuse and neglect etc.

Whilst we have a great staff team for example, who lead on prevention work (Runaway Education Officers in Rotherham and Sheffield), MISPER (Missing Persons Team Project Workers) etc SAFE@LAST would not be able to offer all the vital services that they do to vulnerable young runaways, or indeed raise as much money as we do, without the support of volunteers. Check out our volunteering web pages to get an idea about what our volunteers get up to http://www.safeatlast.org.uk/volunteering.1.htm

So...???
For Volunteers' Week we have organised a wide range of activities from street collecting (in fancy dress as superheros...because thats what our volunteers are!) through to a pamper evening thanks to The Body Shop At Home and a great 'because we're worth it: picnic in the park' for volunteers which will see us play rounders, twister and other such fun things, as well as present the volunteer of the year award. http://www.safeatlast.org.uk/Volunteersweek2010.htm

As well as all this, we also are campaigning for our volunteers to SPREAD THE WORD! and tell at least one new person EVERY DAY during Volunteers' Week about SAFE@LAST and what we do...170+ number of volunteers doing this each day for a week = a lots of new people finding out about support for runaways! Go on, spread the word!

Happy volunteering!