News

National Volunteers’ Week 2023: Celebration and Appreciation

3rd June 2023

As we are all aware, the Coronation recently passed. Crowds gathered, traditions were upheld (and some slightly modified), the great and the good attended, our media shone a light onto the sideshow of personalities and the weather, in typical British fashion, rained on the parade.  

Kings Charles III dedicated the weekend of his Coronation to the Volunteering Spirit within his realm and The Great Help Out was born. Whilst such events might not truly reflect the breadth of the 24/7/365 volunteering that takes place across the country, if it inspired people to keep contributing to their community – then that is no bad thing! 

National Volunteers’ Week (June 1st to June 7th) follows quickly… Here is a time to celebrate and inspire that comes around every year. It, like The Help Out, isn’t the be-all and end-all of showcasing volunteering – that is done again every day by volunteers on the ground. But it is an annual, welcome, chance to thank and appreciate those whose contribution is one of the most important unifying glues in our society. 

A cost of living crisis so soon after a pandemic has all the potential for discouraging and undermining that glue. What National Volunteers’ Week will helpfully do is give us all an opportunity to reflect and take in the sheer scale of what millions of individual contributions can make. The celebration that we invite you to take part in is the appreciation of the contributing individual. Saying thank you when you see a volunteer between June 1st and 7th is a great thing to do. Appreciating what volunteers do all year is even better. 

Michael Green, Volunteering Kingston Project Manager
This blog post is a shared article between Volunteering Kingston and Volunteering Barnet.