Volunteers’ Week – Championing community transport volunteers

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This year, we have an extra-long Volunteers’ Week!

Dubbed ‘The Big Celebration’, Volunteers’ Week 2016 runs from 1-12 June. At the CTA, we want to use it to shout from the rooftops about how vital and cherished volunteers are within the community transport sector.

Over the next 12 days, we’re going to be using our blog and Twitter to share stories of community transport volunteers that have been sent in by our members. In this blog, we share the story of Lisa, a volunteer for  Bungay Area Community Transport (BACT) . Lisa writes about what volunteering means to her:

“Why Volunteer? It helps me appreciate life.”

To be perfectly honest it is these people – the volunteers, the staff & the clients of BACT that keep me grounded, appreciating life for what it is – life is what you make it, enjoy every day, even the bad ones!

In our day-to-day lives we hear so much negativity: discontent with personal situations; dissatisfaction with working conditions; about the unfairness of life and how someone always has more of something than is deemed right.

However…

Friday morning rolls around – myself and my driver board the Door to door / Dial-a-ride bus service, set off to collect a dozen or so sixty, seventy & eighty somethings and go shopping!

This merry band climb onto the bus with a smile, chatter excitedly about their week, their family as well as all the stories that their collective years have achieved and let me assure you that between them, there is not much that hasn’t been had, heard, seen or done!

What you also hear and feel is a love of human companionship, friendliness, compassion for each other and a gratitude that there are people out there that care enough to come out and take them to where they want to go and ensure their safe passage.

There is an appreciation that there’s a service laid on for them by BACT and it’s volunteers for the sole purpose of enabling them to help themselves stay as active and independent as possible.

If this sounds like something you could enjoy and you have a few hours a week to spare volunteering with BACT click here to find out more.