Meet our Foodbank volunteers - Nick and Ray

It's Volunteer Week, and today we're talking to our Big Help Food volunteers, Nick and Ray! Our volunteer Nick is an incredibly hard worker, and helps our food team out most days of the week - whether that be packing up food parcels for Knowsley Foodbank, or helping run our food clubs around Merseyside. This month, Ray is celebrating his three year anniversary volunteering with us, and we're so glad that he's spent so long working together with our food team - they've told us that he's essential to their operations, and an amazing worker.

We got to talk to them both and ask a little about their time working with us...
 

Why did you decide to volunteer?

NICK: I thought it was a good thing to do! I could see for myself that people around me were struggling, especially in the area I live in, in Knowsley. And partly because it gave me something to do, I was heading towards retirement and wanted something to occupy myself with.

RAY: I was a carer for my wife before she died, so when she passed away I was sort of at a loose end. I just needed to get out of the house and do something, you know?

How long have you been volunteering with us?

NICK: About 6 and a half years - I started just before I retired.

RAY: Coming up to about 3 years in June.
 

Something that's stuck with you?

NICK: One of the things that's sort of shocked me, actually, I was at St George's Foodbank one day, and this little old couple came in. The husband was walking with a stick, very frail - turned out he was actually younger than me, and the Job Centre had just signed him off as fit to work! We provided them with food and help. He came in a couple of times - and a few months later, his wife came into the Food Club we ran to tell us he'd passed away. So he was so fit to work that he'd only had a couple of months to live. It just goes to show, you know, people really do need our help, because they might not get it anywhere else.

RAY: Not one particular instance, you know, but it's definitely been an experience. I like giving something back, doing my little bit for the community, so this makes me feel like I'm helping. And you get to meet a lot of new people as well.

How has volunteering impacted you?

NICK: It's made me busier, that's for sure! I've sort of drifted into doing more and more over the years - I started a few hours a week and now I'm doing something for the foodbank most days.

RAY: It's given me an incentive to get up and go in the morning. I'd like to keep on doing it for a long while yet.