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Volunteers are the lifeblood of our community.
More than two million people in NSW regularly volunteer their time without expecting
anything in return.
Every morning at Plunkett St Public School in Woolloomooloo YWCA volunteers prepare
breakfast for students.
Chelsea Ferris is one of those who makes sure the kids get off to a good start.
I just find working the experience really rewarding. I really enjoy working with kids
– it’s something I’ve done all my life and, I guess, knowing that we’re helping them get
a little bit of a better start to the day is rewarding in itself.
The Minister for Citizenship and Communities, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Victor Dominello,
recently visited the school to see the volunteer program in action.
Volunteers are critical to our society because they provide the social glue, the social adhesive
that keeps everyone together.
Volunteering has another dimension at Plunkett St.
Each week staff from the Macquarie Group read to students as part of the Macquarie Foundation
Big Buddy Reading Program.
Susannah Ellis has been reading at the school for four years and loves the experience.
I have a passion for reading and also had a desire to volunteer, so wanted to become involved
– essentially the outcome is to help improve the reading levels and instil that love in the children.
Volunteering for me, it’s very, very rewarding, working with my buddy and seeing her improve week
on week, seeing her get excited when I arrive, open up.
It’s sort of that half an hour out of the office every second week that gives me a chance to get
out of that corporate life and re-energise.
But also just the rewarding piece of seeing her improve every week.
The NSW Government believes that volunteers and volunteering play a vital part in strengthening
our local communities.
And it’s taken the historic step of launching the first NSW Volunteering Strategy.
The strategy contains new initiatives worth more than $4.5 million dollars over the next four years.
Now there are three principal priorities of the government. The first is to make volunteering easier
for people because we need more volunteers in our society.
The more volunteers there are, the healthier our society
The second thing is we want to support organisations that utilise volunteers. Because again,
this is important that we provide that structure around the organisations that utilise volunteers
for the benefit of all of us.
And the third is to make sure we recognise and celebrate volunteers. Now every day that our
society ticks over there are volunteers in the engine room and we have to recognise and
support those people.
I would definitely recommend volunteering to other people. For me, as I said, it’s a great
way to start the day and you really feel like you are contributing to your community in a positive way.
The head of the NSW Centre for Volunteering Lynne Dalton says the opportunities available
to volunteers are limitless.
Whatever your interests or skills, whatever your experience, whatever you love doing they’ll
be an opportunity for you, whether it’s being a pilot, a programmer, walking dogs, planting trees,
nursing babies, nursing people. Just anything.
Anything that you do for your community is volunteering and there is an opportunity in all
aspects of life to volunteer.
I really believe the greater level of volunteering there is in a society, the greater the society.
Volunteers provide that human face, that human touch that actually brings people together
in a real way – in an authentic, organic way. I think if we have more volunteers
we will have a healthier society.