The 5th of December marks International Volunteering Day, which celebrates people who work hard and give their time to help companies and charities.
Volunteering comes in a range of forms, such as helping vulnerable people, running activities in the area, and helping keep a local business functioning.
Nottingham has a host of businesses that offer volunteering opportunities, which benefits the lives of the people doing it as well as the lives of the people they are volunteering for.
Caroline Melbourne, Duty Officer for the DH Lawrence Museum said: “We offer marketing volunteering, where people post on social media and research anything to do with Lawrence and also things of historical interest.
“It’s a real aspect that we are able to provide to expand what we offer, and it’s an important part of us as an organisation.”
Helen Hemstock, Marketing Director at the Sustainable Travel Collective said: “Volunteering helps us to get out into communities, engage with people and helps people ‘upskill’ and improve their employability.
“We have a wide range of volunteering opportunities, and we have volunteers who go out to places with people with mobility issues, or even just go out with people who want to make friends.”
“There is a project that we have live at the moment where the person who originally volunteered with us to improve their job-related skills, then applied for a job for us and got it, which was fantastic really!”
Another charity that has helped people in Nottingham is Cerebral Palsy Sport, which hosted the Nottingham 2015 Cerebral Palsy World Games, with over 280 volunteer Games Starters that made delivering the event possible.
“Cerebral Palsy Sport has a wonderful base of volunteers who support our charity’s disability sports events, fundraising activities and also our administrative work in our office,” Ali Talbot, Chief Executive of Cerebral Palsy Sport said.
“The people we help value the time people give to volunteer and also appreciate that our volunteers devoting time to our programmes means they can access sporting opportunities.”
People in Nottingham also get involved in making personal volunteering campaigns to help charities that they feel passionate about.
Teresa Ambrosio, who ran the Robin Hood Marathon and ran for Nottingham Nightline, said: “My suggestion for people who want to approach volunteering is to combine the volunteering activities with something they enjoy doing, like sell their own drawings or crafts for charity.
“They can also donate money to a foundation they feel close to, like if your grandad died of cancer give money to the cancer associations.”
By Eve Smallman