As volunteers, we see some of the impact of our work

Trina Richards, Volunteer - Activities Lead and Donated Goods Lead

It’s always really touching when you feel you’ve made a difference to someone’s life so I just wanted to share with you a conversation I had tonight when I dropped a child home from skateboarding.

This family who we met a few months ago wanted to be housed in London but found themselves temporarily housed in High Wycombe. During our initial meeting the family asked a number of times about how long they would be here and when they would be able to move back to London to be nearer family; this obviously we couldn’t answer.

The onboarding session went well and in my role as donated goods lead I found them numerous items they had requested. I also suggested they themselves check on FB sites like ‘freecycle’ and ‘acts of kindness’ to look for items we can’t provide letting them know to look at the area so as not to request things from too far away. I said I was happy to go with the mother to collect if items were a little harder to get to. Credit to the family they arranged collection and I drove mum a few weeks ago so she could pick up her blender. Last Sunday we collected a piece of furniture again that she had organised. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart for good night’ was her reply.

Since meeting the family they have engaged lots of our (WRP) activities including attending our womens coffee morning, the children have been attending our weekly skateboarding group, the family came to the recent dance afternoon. They have met another WRP volunteer (who owns the free bookshop in town) and mum collected books for the children, and some of the children have started school.

Tonight when I took one of the children home after skateboarding the youngest child came to me to proudly show me his ‘big work’ book and mum and I chatted about the event coming up next week to which two of the children will attend. We also spoke about the recent piece of furniture, me saying that these sites she’ll find once she’s in more permanent accommodation. The mum looked at me and with the son’s translation she said maybe she’ll be lucky to stay in High Wycombe. It was a genuine happy, I feel looked after and cared about comment and it really touched me.

This is only what I’ve been lucky enough to witness, obviously it’s part of a bigger picture and as with all the families we support there are numerous volunteers getting involved and making that difference to ease the journey of uncertainty. It’s such a privilege though to be able to help others feel cared about.