“We need more volunteers because there’s a need out there.”
This Volunteers’ Week, we speak to Maureen, aged 65 years old, who’s been volunteering with St Christopher’s since 2021.
Maureen has always been local to St Christopher’s, but currently lives in Thornton Heath in Surrey. After making a decision to go back to university to change career and retrain as a social worker, Maureen started volunteering in the wards at St Christopher’s. She’s now based at the St Christopher’s Bereavement Help Point in Croydon Library.
Maureen’s focus is simple: creating a space where people feel able to come together and talk about loss in their own way.
The Bereavement Help Point at Croydon Library is weekly and Maureen volunteers there on a monthly basis to support people who join those meetings. Our Bereavement Help Points are run by trained volunteers and are designed to bring people together who are experiencing grief and bereavement
Maureen says, “I like to think that my role is just to be there… to support them and to allow them to talk,” She adds: “It’s about them speaking more than I speak.”
“People have said that they love the space because there is no other space like here. And they know that they can come and sit and cry and talk about the person they’ve loved or just to give to support to other people that I’ve come into the group. So it’s a worthwhile thing to have available to people.”
The group welcomes anyone who has experienced bereavement, and people attend as and when they need. “They use the group as they need to, they know that the support system is there,” Maureen says. “You can come for the two hours or you can just come as you want, or just to listen.”
“They know that they can come and sit and cry and talk about the person they’ve loved.”
What makes the space powerful is its peer-to-peer nature. “A peer support group is for people to talk and share their stories. Sometimes its about listening to someone else, they may have gone along the same journeys,” she says. Attendees value the openness and understanding, often describing it as somewhere they can speak freely: “They know that they can come and sit and cry and talk about the person they’ve loved.”
For Maureen, volunteering is about connection rather than recognition. “I suppose I’m doing this because it’s something that I’m interested in. I believe in what I’m doing,” she reflects. Those small, human moments matter most to her, like sitting with someone and simply reading a poem. “It was just so lovely that you sat and you didn’t ask many questions,” she recalls them saying. “You just read the poem to me.”
She believes volunteers play a vital role in the work of St Christopher’s, both within the hospice and out in the community. “St Christopher’s has a lot of volunteers and they need a lot of volunteers, it helps them be out there among the community,” she says.
Her message for Volunteers’ Week is clear: “Go ahead and do it, we need more volunteers because there’s a need out there.”
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