How to ask for a helping hand

BETWEEN National Volunteer Week and a volunteer expo on Tuesday, the idea of donating your time and effort was on a lot of people’s minds recently.

Despite the expo filling Barkly Square with waves of potential new volunteers and people ready to recruit them, some non-profit representatives have said it’s still difficult to get new helpers on board.

Jasmine Darge is the program coordinator for the local Salvation Army’s LARF mentoring initiative aimed at supporting disengaged young people.

Despite running for more than 20 years, she said the team is “desperate all the time” for more volunteers.

“We entirely rely on volunteers to succeed,” she said. “Out of lockdown, we lost a lot of volunteers because circumstances changed for everyone.

“We’ve had to do a lot of recruitment. We try to keep at least 10 people, and we were down to about three after COVID. We’re up to about seven now for the last two years.”

Ms Darge said letting their volunteers know they’re valued has been key to maintaining their time and commitment.

“We put a lot of emphasis on valuing them and making sure they know how important they are,” she said.

“We put aside time in our program to just have events for them and show our appreciation by letting them know about opportunities, and providing them with things like a professional reference.”

Bakery Hill’s Ebony Grigsby has been volunteering from a young age and recently took part in the Carols by Candlelight event during Christmas.

She said she’s found it easy to reengage with volunteerism despite the large gap of inactivity from lockdowns.

“The passion for working and being around my personal community always makes it really fun to come back,” she said.

“My best advice would be for someone to find where their passion lies and then it’s all about finding the right community of people to work with.”

Kay Macaulay has been a member of the Rotary Club of Wendouree Breakfast for more than 20 years.

Working currently alongside more than 50 members, Ms Macaulay said the best way to recruit volunteers is to let them know about the opportunities available.

“Events like the expo are always good but it’s about having conversations,” she said.

“We have a lot of people coming into the community looking at ways to get involved so we encourage people to look at what we’re doing so they can help make up their mind about where to go.

“Everyone has at least some skill they can give back. It’s a great way to keep active in the community.

“There’s still a lot more to be done in Ballarat than just the expo. There’s a lot of us here and we all rely on volunteers.”