To celebrate the end of Lent Term 2020, we’re doing a recap of some of the fantastic accomplishments LSE volunteers have made this year.

“In the Volunteer Centre we’re incredibly sad that term has ended like this and our thoughts are with all those that have been affected by COVID-19. Despite this turn of events it has been an excellent term of volunteering with our students helping in communities far and wide and making a real difference in people’s lives. We’ve also been incredibly heartened by the LSE community’s response to what is happening at the moment with so many people getting in touch asking how they can help others. We know that volunteering and acts of kindness will make this difficult period much easier for many and we’re proud to be playing our role in that effort.” – David Coles, LSE Volunteer Centre Manager.

The LSE community celebrated its biggest ever Student Volunteering Week 2020, with 6 events, 4 charity stalls and over 60 students volunteering! During the week we spoke about volunteering in the law sector and the ethics surrounding voluntourism. We also spoke to lots of student volunteers about the benefits they’ve gained from their volunteering experiences!

From transcribing manuscripts to sorting out food that would be wasted, knitting for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home to maintaining ecology parks, we’ve done some really fun one-off volunteering sessions this term. It’s been really exciting to see over 147 students volunteering their time through our one-off volunteering program this term, with some of them trying out volunteering for the first time!

We also launched the nominations for the LSE Volunteer Awards! Unfortunately, we won’t be able to hold the awards in Summer Term 2020 but we hope to be celebrating everyone’s fantastic accomplishments in Michaelmas Term. Please do keep nominating students and organisations for the awards, more information can be found here.

The staff in the Volunteer Centre have adjusted to working from home and we are still open! You can drop us an email, book an online appointment and we’ve got lots of information on how you can volunteer at the moment. As always, students are able to check out one of our other 200+ ongoing opportunities on CareerHub. If you want to share your volunteering experience with us, why not write us a blog? Have a scroll through our blog page to read what other students have written and get inspired! Whether you’ve just taken up volunteering, have been doing it for a while or have done it in the past, let us know! We hope everyone has a well deserved break over the Easter holidays before they start studying.