85 Volunteers, and Counting....Thank You by Grampian Opportunities
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by Grampian Opportunities
Grampian Opportunties has 85 Volunteers and 12 members of staff at the moment and we could not run this service without all of our Volunteers. There are nine Volunteer Trustees who meet on a regular basis to discuss the general running of the service and how improvements can be made along with celebrating the services success's.
GO's Volunteers include a group of men and women who independently run the larder which is like a food bank, Volunteers will drive and pick up food donations from various stores and then display food items on the shelves the Volunteers will greet people as they come in to get food for themselves and their families the Volunteers are friendly and make the visitors feel relaxed and welcome which is a great skill to have.
GO have a project called the Listening Ear Project where volunteers once trained and inducted appropriately will call a person who signed up for this project to have some call them at a time that has been agreed and to have a chat with them to see how they are doing which makes so much difference to a lot of people who might feel lonely and isolated this is great for their mental health and general wellbeing.
We have a Volunteer who comes into the office on a Tuesday and a Thursday for most of the day to meet with members of the public who have been booked in to meet with this Volunteer as they need support with benefit advice and general money matters enquiries that need to be explored and resolved these matters can be overwhelming for a lot of people and can affect their confidence and mental health due to feeling stressed and overwhelmed. The Volunteer comes with so much experience in this field and has the capability to resolve matters along with offering funding for energy costs so the individual who has come into the service not only gets their financial matters resolved they also then receive financial support for their heating costs that they were not aware that they might be entitled to so walk away relieved and happy with the outcome, there might be a few visits with this volunteer to resolve matters, this volunteer cares about the support she gives and gladly gives up her time to help others this volunteers role makes such a difference to people who need this support and can get this support very quickly by some one who comes across friendly non judgmental and respectful.
Grampian Opportunities also has four Volunteers who cover reception this role is so helpful to the service as they answer calls that come in and meet and greet visitors that come through the door with a friendly smile and welcome people through the door directing them to the appropriate support they are looking for, these volunteers help out at events and will do the odd piece of research for the service when asked.
GO has a volunteer who helps out with Tech and IT operations who enjoys using his skills and is in the office daily. This gentleman, along with most of GO's volunteers has been volunteering for this service for around 17 years. There is a handful of volunteers who support the IT Buddy Project by supporting individuals who do not have confidence to use technology however, they need to use a computer to apply for jobs or complete online forms or know how to set up an email for themselves. this is a very busy service and vital to a lot of people who need this support. We also have a volunteer who supports an employee who has a visual impairment and can not use her visual aid to access the excel spreadsheet, so this volunteer will come in once a month and add invoices to the excel spreadsheet for her.
All 85 volunteers are so important and highly valued by all from GO and really add to the smooth day to day running of all the projects that run within the service. Thank You to all our Volunteers your support is very appreciated!
Ryan Johnstone and Karen Mcllwaine are Volunteers for the Larder here at Grampian Opportunties along with Ryan who is a founder of the Larder and got this Project up and running!
Ryan also research’s a lot of fund-raising opportunities where the money will go to GO or the Project within GO.
Karen is now a paid employee as well as still a volunteer some days, Karen helps out with the larder and runs the GO independent Group where she will organise and implement activities for people who have disabilities.