If you’ll be in London over the holidays, then there’s no better place or time to volunteer! Not only will it help you get into a festive mood, but you can also help your community while you’re at it. Better yet, grab a friend or family member and sign up together to double the amount of holiday cheer spread. We are listing a few starting points, but do reach out to your local charities to see if they need assistance this holiday season!
The Baytree Centre Giving Tuesday Christmas Challenge
Nestled in the vibrant community of South London, The Baytree Centre stands as a beacon of hope, committed to the transformative mission of empowering women to overcome adversity. They provide a variety of programmes that are built on the pillars of family stability, financial management, education, employment, and wellbeing. This year, they are taking part in Giving Tuesday, a worldwide day of giving to raise vital funds to support their Women’s Services! You can donate from November until the 5th of December and apply on their website to one of their many volunteering opportunities with their Youth or Women’s Services.
Crisis works at Christmas and all year round to support people across Britain to build their lives beyond homelessness. Their Christmas services work alongside the specialist support they provide all year, which includes helping people to find their own stable home and access education and training. Through their year-round services, hotels and health and wellbeing programmes, Crisis will be supporting over 7,000 people this Christmas.
As a Crisis at Christmas volunteer, you can be part of a friendly and supportive community of like-minded people who are passionate about ending homelessness. Typical volunteer roles include providing fresh and nourishing home-cooked meals for guests and members, offering specialist services such as haircuts, podiatry and physiotherapy, driving guests and / or wellbeing packages and offering advice.
The Whitechapel Mission is open every day of the year and not just for Christmas. They open their doors at 6am every day, with access to free food, free showers, free medical assistance and access to advice workers who are here to assist with housing and much more. In addition to volunteering roles on Christmas, they accept donations and are currently looking for hygiene kits, woolen hats, gloves, scarves, and oyster cards, among other items. You can put together one of their specialty packs on your own time and donate to them before 16 December!
Every year, Rotary hosts a Christmas Day party for eldery people. They are looking for bus escorts and those who can perform general event duties, which includes supporting set up for the event on Christmas Eve, facilitating getting individuals from bus to their table of guests—or other ‘day of’ jobs—and clearing up on Boxing Day.
It is important to keep in mind that many volunteering opportunities have applications to register your commitment over the holidays, so try to sign up as soon as you can!
If Sophie has inspired you to volunteer this holiday season, check out one of our other ongoing opportunities or book a one-to-one with David Coles, the Volunteer Centre Manager if you have more questions. And why not follow us on Twitter, and Instagram to stay up-to-date with our events and opportunities and read our blog for more volunteering tips and stories.
