According to research conducted in May this year, one in five UK adults (19%) has volunteered their time for community activities since the start of lockdown on 23rd March. As the year has gone on, that desire to help hasn’t lessened – more recent research conducted by the National Emergencies Trust found that almost a fifth (14%) of 18 to 24-year-olds are planning to volunteer this Christmas – up 5% from the 9% who volunteered their time for others last year.
Finding ways to give back, however small, can be a lifeline not only for those you are helping but for yourself. Volunteering gives you a sense of purpose, connects you to your community and reminds you how good humanity can be.
So if you’re looking for ways to make your 2021 better, finding a way to volunteer, however small, would be a good place to start. If you’re stuck for ideas of how to get involved, we asked our Money Diaries Facebook group for their recommendations.
I do this once a week on Saturdays for a few hours/as long as I feel!
My dog passed away in August and I missed walking him. This was also a great opportunity for me to be outside more and also spend some time with these dogs that have so much love to give.
My mood is always lifted after leaving the rescue. I feel like I’ve given some happiness to these rescue pups, and they’ve given a great deal of happiness to me.
I started doing the NHS volunteer responding (collecting prescriptions etc) and also have done GoodGym quite a few times (I started this just before lockdown but only by a couple of weeks). I have done 1,000 hours of being ‘on duty’ with the NHS volunteer app (obviously you’re not constantly doing things but it makes you available). I do GoodGym every few weeks when work allows.
The volunteer responding you can do whenever you’re free so it’s very flexible and the GoodGym meant I could meet other people and get involved in community tasks.
It has a massively positive impact. You really get a ‘good deed high’ when you’ve helped someone out, even if it’s just a phone call to make sure they’re okay. I’ve done various volunteer work since I was a teenager and it’s something I need to do as it aids my mental health so much.
I’ve been doing it since March and have so far fostered 10 cats, helping each one to find their forever home.
I live alone, like animals and knew fostering would be a good way to have some company while doing something positive. It’s been such an awful year, I love knowing I’ve played a small part in improving a cat’s life. I’ve volunteered at the sanctuary for a couple of years and when I saw how much they were struggling, during the first lockdown, I knew I could help more.
It’s given me a bit more purpose to my day. I’ve been working from home since the beginning of March, which could have been quite lonely. The cats each have such unique personalities and needs and I love getting to know them. They’re always keeping me busy and entertained.
I’m offering mentoring support to kids from disadvantaged backgrounds via a once-a-week virtual group session. The sessions are a mixture of group activities and 1-1 mentoring sessions in breakout rooms via Zoom.
I’d been wanting to give something back for a while but with work commitments this had never felt possible before. Gaining back time from my commute and with the option to volunteer virtually from home was the kick I needed to finally do it.
I look forward to my Wednesday sessions and it really helps break up my working week – offering me the opportunity to speak with completely different people to my everyday. I’m still very new in my volunteering journey but have high hopes for what I can achieve and the impact it will have on mine and the lives of the kids I work with.
I’m on maternity leave and can do this around my three children. I feel way more grateful for what I have, I enjoy a sense of purpose, my oldest two children are really curious about it (in a positive way) plus it’s great to know you’re helping, even in a small way.
I started the food delivery and admin in April when I was furloughed, started as three times a week and went down to two when the need dropped off. We would shop and deliver the food to those in need and I would oversee the admin side of it as well, creating and printing receipts, submitting orders, stock takes etc. This ended in September. I then volunteered three times a week in a charity shop, processing donations, dressing windows, stocking the shop floor and working on the till. I have also just signed up to help with the vaccination rollout that starts this weekend.
I wanted to help out in the community, and also to keep myself busy while furloughed. When the community work ended, I still wanted to do something so that’s when I started in the charity shop.
It has been so good for me! The idea of furlough sounds great, being paid for time off! But for me, I was stuck in a flat with no outdoor space, on my own, as my husband carried on working. Not only do I feel that I’m helping the community, I’ve met some great people and I’m hoping to carry on in some way when things get back to some normality.
While weekends away visiting friends were obviously all cancelled, it’s been a nice way to get outside and do something useful.
You definitely feel like you’ve achieved something at the end of the weekend rather than wasting your life away!
While furloughed I started volunteering one day a week at a local food bank, and also spent one morning a week shopping for the residents of a care home who were in isolation / lockdown.
I have always volunteered previously, especially while I was studying. Furlough gave me the chance to get back into it. This year has been complicated and extra difficult for everyone so I had the time to do something helpful for others.
It really helped to keep me sane when out of work. I had my routine of volunteering two days a week that got me out of the house, seeing people, meeting people as well as being active. It helped to maintain some normality to life and I always really enjoyed my time doing it.
I was unemployed and wanted some purpose and wanted to give back during the pandemic. Even now that I’m employed I still manage to volunteer once a week.
It definitely made me feel like I was helping, although it makes me sad to see how much the food bank needs to give out. It’s made me realise it’s something I want to continue throughout the rest of my life. It has also affected what future careers I do as I would never want to do anything where I don’t have enough time to give back and it’s made me consider a job in the charity sector much more.
I provide feedback on one CV every fortnight. I actually learned about the charity from the R29 Money Diary group. I have bags of professional experience in this area and a bit more time on my hands now I’m not commuting or travelling internationally with my job. We’ve been very lucky to be mostly unaffected by the pandemic so I wanted to put my time and expertise to good use.
I find it really rewarding and look forward to the CV coming in every other Friday. Although it’s aligned to what I do in my professional life, it doesn’t feel like work and I get so much satisfaction from feeling like I’m paying forward some of the mentoring opportunities and connections I benefited from at the start of my career.
I’ve been mentoring young girls who have gone through unfortunate conditions in their life such as rape, abandonment, grooming, familial trauma and other things.
Growing up I also experienced some trauma in my life but I was lucky to come out the better end and live a successful, fulfilling life, so I was looking to give advice and help steer girls to go in the right direction like me.
Now being successful, I would often feel guilty for the life I have. I would also worry about the smallest things like my holiday being cancelled or gaining weight and I realised I was becoming detached from my reality and entering a selfish, self-consuming world. Volunteering has helped me to realise that there’s bigger issues going on in the world.
During the first lockdown, most branches shifted their training online, which meant that trainee volunteers didn’t have to travel to the branch in person. As I was back at home with my family and away from my usual branch, I signed up to lead role plays that help new volunteers put the skills they’ve learned into practice. I tend to do a virtual role play either over the phone or via web chat every couple of weeks, as well as my usual weekly in-person shifts when I’m in London. I have also volunteered as a Samaritan at Crisis At Christmas for the past couple of years. This year I will be joining as a telephone befriender, as Crisis can only have a limited number of volunteers at the physical centres. I’m sure this will be a different experience to usual but I’m hopeful that we will still be able to provide a valuable service and I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.
The virtual nature allowed me to continue volunteering when I was away from my routine in London. It is something that I can do when I visit my family outside of the UK. At the moment I am back home for Christmas and have to quarantine for two weeks, so even though I can’t leave the house I can still support Samaritans.
Samaritans provides such an important service even in normal times and the pandemic has made it even more essential. When I’m speaking to a caller, who I am and my personal situation isn’t relevant – the call is about them and their feelings. It’s actually quite refreshing to have that time to focus entirely on another person and offer them nonjudgmental support. When a call goes well, you can often hear how much calmer the other person is by the end. Knowing that you’ve helped someone just by being on the end of the phone is a good feeling. It can also help me put my own life in perspective. I’m constantly amazed by how strong and brave our callers are despite the difficulties they are experiencing.
They send you an anonymised CV and you add comments – everything from grammar and spelling to layout and content/structure.
I’ve volunteered with the trust before and so they send me emails with opportunities. As I can’t really volunteer in person at the moment, I thought this was a good way to make a difference that would fit in easily around work and home life.
I’ve only done it once so far but have signed up to do it more regularly. It’s nice to think that I’ll have helped a young person gain confidence and improved their chances of getting an interview.
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