We always seek to say “Thank You” throughout the year – but the first seven days of June represent a specific opportunity to say a huge collective THANK YOU to everyone involved across the Harpenden Trust.
Volunteers' Week takes place between 1st June and 7th June every year and 2023 marks its 39th year. By way of background, this is a UK wide initiative and a chance to recognise the fantastic contribution volunteers make across communities and say thank you. Volunteers’ Week is supported and celebrated by small grassroots organisations as well as larger, household-name charities. Together they run hundreds of activities across the UK, which showcase and celebrate volunteers and their contribution to local communities. Volunteers are active at the heart of every UK community. It was estimated that over 16 million people volunteered through a group, club or organisation back in 2021. So taking the time during Volunteers’ Week to celebrate and recognise these efforts and how volunteers contribute to local communities, the voluntary sector and society as a whole has never been more important.
Volunteers are the essential backbone of the Harpenden Trust – from home visits, to coffee mornings, to befriending, to contact with the main office, to grant organisers, to seniors’ outings, to family outings, to support for funding local community projects, to hall bookings, to Christmas parcel deliveries, to transport journeys, to Harpenden Library volunteers, to Minibus project coordinators, to Memory Lane Café participants, to Frazzled Café facilitators, to wellbeing friend contacts, to Seniors’ Fair events, to Christmas Appeal envelope deliveries, to Ribbon Cancer Support Group organisers, to hall refurbishment projects, to Well Bean Café baristas, to Trust board or Trust committee meetings … or to providing that small piece of practical local support to someone in need .… and everything else we do …. it is all only possible because of everyone’s amazing help! And yes – that’s over 500 of us!! A completely inspiring and incredible team effort!!!
This year, Volunteers’ Week also marks the opening of our Harpenden Trust Community Café – the Well Bean Café – at our new No. 130 Southdown Road premises. The Café opens on Monday, 5 June for the very first time. Do please come along between 10.30am and 12.30pm on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday next week to meet up with fellow volunteers as our latest community initiative starts up.
THANK YOU all so much !!
Richard Nichols, Chair, Harpenden Trust
01 June 2023
