Home-Start volunteering

Last night Kevin and I spoke briefly at community fundraising event Sutton Soup about the volunteering I am doing for Home-Start Sutton to a crowd of over 200 people!

A few members of the audience came up to me afterwards saying what I’d said was inspiring and I was thrilled.

At the previous Sutton Soup, HomeStart won the funding and this time they were reporting back on how they’d spent it: on training new volunteers, including me! So our talk was to show the impact of that funding.

I wanted to share this because I am really proud of myself for speaking! I think it’s more natural for Kevin as he’s an extrovert. But I was so eager to do it when HomeStart asked me, as it was to do with Coraline; and when it’s about her I am passionate. And because I am such a fan of HomeStart.

HomeStart volunteers support families with young children and spend two hours each week with a family.

We had two volunteers in succession over the course of 2018 in the run up to Coraline’s heart surgery, when I couldn’t take her to groups as she wasn’t allowed to get ill. I remember the initial call I made to the coordinator Bev, as I was walking down our street the year Coraline was born, knowing I could use a little support and time to get things done. I also wanted other influences for Coraline. Bev was superb and bubbly. She came to visit us and then in due course we were matched with a volunteer.

As our volunteers made such a big impact on us, and I will always remember them for their peaceful presence, I wanted to do the same for someone else.

I did eight sessions of training last autumn. I met a fantastic group of people on the training which was brilliantly run. And I’ve now done four home visits myself as a volunteer. I told the mum I volunteer with that I used to look forward to my volunteer’s visits and after a couple of sessions she said to me, “you know I think I am going to be like you and look forward to your visits each week”.

Thank you Uncle Ed for babysitting so we could both go!

I’ll write another post later today about who actually won the funding last night as it’s another organisation, and inspirational woman at the heart of it, close to our heart!