Be a volunteer

At SPEAR, we know the value volunteers can bring. Volunteers form a vital part of many of our services; from covering the reception desks at our Hostel, to working with our Outreach team to locate rough sleepers, to sharing hobbies and skills, providing mentoring support to clients and raising funds.

In 2019–20 our volunteers contributed well over 3300 hours at SPEAR, helping to make our charity stronger and more sustainable.  We clearly couldn’t do all that we do without you. THANK YOU!

VOLUNTEER(S) WANTED FOR SUMMER PROJECT – POP-UP CLOTHING STORE:

The pop-up clothing project is an initiative to provide good quality, gently-used clothes to our clients in need of items. We are looking for two people over the school holidays – the role would involve picking up donated clothes from a location in the Borough of Richmond and bringing them to the Twickenham Hub on an “as needs” basis.

Clients and their key workers will be involved in choosing what is required. Adherence to the Government’s social distancing guidelines will be upheld at all times.

You would need to set aside 3 hours or so on any week day, every other week. You will also need to be DBS background checked. If you are interested, please email: volunteer@spearlondon.org.

(Please note the photo used here was before Covid-19 and social distancing measures were in place)

Covid-19 Update

When the Covid-19 global health crisis emerged, whilst we kept some of our more remote volunteering going such as pro bono corporate communications and fundraising support, many areas of volunteering were temporarily put on hold.  This was due to much of our volunteering work being carried out in a face-to-face situation.

As the health situation has developed, we have reviewed ways in which active volunteering could be resumed in a safe and healthy way, in accordance with Government guidelines.

We are establishing a Volunteer Telephone Befriender initiative whereby a small pool of selected volunteers are being matched with SPEAR clients for a weekly telephone chat. This activity can be carried out safely and remotely for all concerned. Currently we are only using existing SPEAR volunteers whilst we pilot this programme.

We also have initiated a Volunteer Driver programme whereby drivers collect the large amount of food donations we are receiving from our partner supermarkets and deliver the food to various locations on a needs basis. At times, we also require Volunteer Drivers for other drop-offs and pick-ups. If you are interested in joining this programme please contact volunteer@spearlondon.org for further information. Please be aware that volunteers will be required to complete an application form, have reference checks and be DBS checked.

Our clothing/confidence building volunteers are also providing clothes again for SPEAR clients on a request basis (although currently we have put on hold any requests for more donated clothes as we have enough supplies).

We continue to review volunteering and adapt our approach around Covid-19 in line with Government guidelines. Watch an interview about how one of our volunteers Caroline has been helping HERE 

If you are interested in helping out in this way, or in volunteering with SPEAR in the future, you can join our Volunteer Mailing List by signing up below. You can take a look at current and past newsletters here.

In the meantime, you can read what volunteers feel about volunteering at SPEAR in our latest Volunteer Satisfaction Report.

SPEAR collects and processes personal data relating to its volunteers in order to manage the volunteering relationship. SPEAR is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for an explanation of the personal data which SPEAR collects and of why and how we store and use this.