Adrienne Earls, Skills and Volunteering Cymru Manager, sings the praises of their volunteers.
Like many others, the coronavirus has had a huge impact on the type of activities that SVC (Skills and Volunteering Cymru) can deliver. We therefore set our sights on developing new digital initiatives which would help to combat feelings of loneliness and isolation, plus bring some much-needed joy and laughter to our beneficiaries!
We put out a call through social media asking the local community to help us to provide digital alternatives. One of the lovely community members who responded to our call for help was volunteer Wally Walsh. Wally is a music coordinator at a primary school and offered to run a weekly sing-along for us.
Every Monday afternoon a group of 20 – 30 adults with disabilities, and health care workers, tune into his digital session to sing in unison to several songs led by Wally. Wally aims to make us all smile, and even sometimes takes requests – for example last week he sang You’ll Never Walk Alone – no easy task for a Manchester United fan!
We asked Wally why he volunteers his time to this cause – ‘This pandemic has unleashed an energy among local communities to reach out, to mobilise in some way to help those less fortunate. I guess I got caught up in that wave.’
‘My role could not be more rewarding, because week in, week out, I get to see new faces, make new connections and sing songs with new friends – all from my living room. Music has that magic quality of uniting people.’
We just wanted to say a great big thank you to Wally for giving up his time and making us all smile every week. We also wanted to say a great BIG thank you to all the other wonderful volunteers who have helped us over the past few months by joining our digital befriending service, as well as our team of delivery drivers and our sewing group.
SVC aim to provide a range of online activities to as many beneficiaries as possible. If you have a skill that you would be willing to share, as a one off, or on a regular basis, then please get in touch at info@svcymru.org or complete our online application here – https://forms.gle/yYxmUwf8kptVDJS38
We work with children and adults with disabilities, young carers, patients on dementia wards, or patients with mental health conditions, homeless people and isolated older people – www.svcymru.org