Each year, Volunteers’ Week (2-8 June) gives us the chance to recognise the enormous contribution volunteers make to communities across the UK – and nowhere is that more evident than at Southwark Pensioners’ Centre (SPC).
Volunteers are at the heart of our work. They help us deliver a welcoming, supportive and effective service to older people in Southwark, often going above and beyond to ensure our clients feel listened to, informed and cared for.
From the warm welcome at reception to guiding people through our advice and support services, our volunteers help maintain the compassionate, community-focused spirit that defines the SPC. They have supported the planning and smooth delivery of day trips and group activities, helped prepare people for appointments and ensured follow-up support was given.
Their contributions help us reach more people, with better outcomes.
Over the past year, we have relied on the energy and commitment of both long-term volunteers and short-term student placements to strengthen our services, especially in our Advice and Advocacy projects.
Thanks to five dedicated Welcome Volunteers and five Advocacy Volunteers, we’ve been able to expand the capacity of our Advice service – greeting clients, explaining next steps, gathering key documents, and making reminder and follow-up calls. This has not only improved our reach but also the quality and depth of support we provide.
Volunteers also helped plan and support our energy advice outreach events, co-creating promotional materials and helping welcome clients on the day. Without their support, we simply wouldn’t have had the capacity to help as many people or offer the level of personal, one-to-one support that we do.
On the importance of volunteers, Cathy Deplessis, Director of Southwark Pensioners’ Centre, said, “I want to offer a huge thank to our volunteers who continue to make a huge difference to our community and to the Centre, from looking after you at reception to helping to run events dealing with a very wide range of enquiries, to leading groups, day trips and holidays, planning and organising activities, podiatry appointments and onboarding you for advice or support enquiries – we really do appreciate you!”
This summer, we say a fond farewell to:
- Gen – our wonderful Welcome Volunteer and receptionist
- Michelle, Alex, Zach and Anna – student interns who have made valuable contributions in supervision, financial planning, event organisation, communications and service data analysis.
Thank you for your time, your ideas and your commitment to making the SPC a better place for everyone.
And we are pleased to give a warm welcome to our new student volunteers:
- Matthew, Hasan, Maryam, Maahi and Ryan – who will be helping us with marketing, communication, events, annual accounts, financial planning, key business processes, and social research.
To every single volunteer – past, present and future – thank you. You make what we do possible.
