Red Zebra Community Solutions, Canterbury College and Demelza Hospice Care for Children – a great collaboration!
Charity shops are an important income stream for many charities and rely heavily on volunteer involvement to keep them trading. A week in November saw a collaboration between Red Zebra, Demelza Hospice Care for Children and Canterbury College placing 39 students in seven Demelza shops volunteering a total of 264 hours; almost £2500 at the national living wage.
Feedback from both the students and the teams in the Demelza shops was overwhelmingly positive with one manager saying “The students made such a difference! We got so much more done. They were quick to absorb training, got stuck in without complaining and worked really hard – it was perhaps no coincidence that the shop was +29% on target! If I could clone them all I would!”
Additionally four students undertook a project to capture some film footage of both volunteers and the organisation, with the purpose of creating a short film to be used on the Red Zebra website in the future.
Nico, Nathan and Harley volunteered at the Canterbury Demelza shop and said “It’s been amazing – we’ve really enjoyed it! We loved doing the window (despite now being covered in fake snow!). Everyone here at Canterbury Demelza has been so nice, a really good experience.”
The proportion of young people (16-25 years) volunteering has increased by more than half with young people saying that it is a valuable way of learning new skills, testing out different careers and enhancing their CVs for future employment or university applications.