Over the next month, we’re celebrating all our volunteers across Honeycomb Group.

This week the spotlight is on our volunteers at Staffs Housing.

Viv lives at Bradeley Village and has volunteered there for over 3 years. Her first role was running the Village’s bar on a Saturday night and then helping out in the bistro.

Now, Viv is on the entertainment committee and is in charge of one of the most important jobs: “I book the entertainment for Saturday nights at Bradeley Village.

“We were already connected with some of the artists because they’ve performed here before. The others I find through an agency. I normally give them a call at the beginning of the week to make sure they’re still ok to come. Then on Saturday I greet them, show them where to set up and then they entertain us.”

As well as sourcing the artists, Viv is also part of the group which raises money to fund the shows: “There’s a team of us who do the raffle and other things like guess the weight of the sweets.”

We chatted to Viv while she’s busy making coffee and serving customers in the Bistro: “Before starting at the bistro I’d never worked in catering before. Staffs Housing supported me though my food hygiene course.

“I normally help out once a week here, but if I see they’re struggling with lots of customers I try to help out more."

Before Viv moved to Bradeley, she volunteers at some other charities and organisations. But when she found out there were lots of opportunities to help out at the Village, she took them up instead: "t’s really nice because you interact with the residents and it’s great to be able to serve your own community. It occupies me and makes me happy if I can help somebody else." 

Click here to find out more about volunteering for Staffs Housing. To see our opportunities across Honeycomb Group, click here.