East Anglia's Children's Hospices short of 200 volunteers
The charity says it needs more people to help out if its going to survive long term
An East of England charity says its short of hundreds of volunteers, at a time when it needs to raise millions of pounds to recover after the Covid-19 pandemic.
East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices provide care and support for young people with life threatening conditions across the whole of the East.
The charity has three hospices across the region; The Nook in Norfolk, The Treehouse in Suffolk and a third at Milton in Cambridgeshire.
EACH relies on donations, which have taken a hit because of the pandemic. However it says its shops are doing well, with a boom in both sales and donations.
It's now launched a major recruitment drive, runnung until January 28th:
Ian Nicolson, EACH Director of Retail and Trading, says:
“In terms of volunteer numbers, we’re still desperately trying to recover from the effects of the pandemic.”
“We’re down 21% compared to the figures pre-COVID and that’s some improvement, because at one point it was 50%.
“However, in real numbers, that equates to just short of 200 volunteers and, as a result, our shops remain under heavy pressure because donations are up more than 30% on pre-COVID levels.
“It’s a perfect storm between those levels being up and volunteer numbers being down.
“Sales are booming, which is fantastic, but it’s creating enormous pressure in our shops because we don’t have the resources to process everything.
“As a result, we’re spending a lot more on staff primarily through paying for more sales assistants and relief managers.”
EACH has set a target of raising £5.4m from its shops this year.
Ian added: “Without volunteers charity retail isn’t a viable operation. It’s as simple as that and why we’re so hopeful this campaign strikes a chord with people and encourages them to make contact.”
If you want to help out - you can find out more on the EACH website.