A day in the life of a charity volunteer
3 Min Read
It was Saturday 14th August 2021 and the sun was shining. Myself and my colleagues, Jacqui O’Rourke, Julia Prior and Kathryn Playter volunteered for Child Bereavement UK at the Let’s Rock Southampton Festival.
We arrived at 11:30 at Southampton Common ready to start our volunteering shift at 12:00pm. We met the friendly Seb and Marianne from Child Bereavement UK who gave us a briefing of what we were going to do. Jacqui and I paired up and our first job was to sell charity wristbands and raise as much money as possible. This was a task right up our street and we were ready to hit the festival and raise lots of money for such a wonderful charity. The atmosphere was incredible and Toyah was singing in the background as we started to walk through the crowd. People were digging deep and buying the wristbands, and on a few occasions people would chase us down, which wasn’t difficult due to the big yellow flags we were wearing on our backs.
After a couple of hours selling wristbands we needed to restock. We went back to the Child Bereavement UK tent for our next job which was to scan tickets and make sure people coming into the festival were ready to have a great time. So far we had seen Toyah, Then Jerico, Five Star, a DJ set by Pat Sharp and now it was Go West to get the crowd up and dancing. We scanned tickets and welcomed everyone into the festival, there were some incredible costumes from Prince, Del Boy and Madonna to florescent ankle warmers and headbands. About 4:30pm we had completed our shift for Child Bereavement UK and went back to Seb to hand back our T shirts. He said it had been a great day and a lot of money was raised, we were then allowed to enjoy the rest of the festival. We were lucky enough to see Marc Almond, Howard Jones, ABC and then head to the front row to see Wet Wet Wet. Oh yes, I also bumped into a member of the band and asked for a cheeky selfie! It was a great end to a fantastic day and we have already asked if we can volunteer for Child Bereavement UK next year.
For anyone thinking of volunteering my advice is DO IT DO IT DO IT!
Child bereavement UK helps children, parents and families to rebuild their lives when a child grieves or when a child dies. They support children and young people up to the age of 25 who are facing bereavement, and anyone impacted by the death of a child of any age. Child Bereavement UK also provides training to professionals in health and social care, education, the voluntary and corporate sectors, equipping them to provide the best possible care to bereaved families. They offer free, confidential bereavement support by telephone, video or instant messenger, as well as face to face from a number of locations across the UK. For more information please visit, www.childbereavementuk.org
