CEO Reflections | Our community’s “can do” spirit
Photo by Pricilla Gyamfi, from Unsplash
We, as individuals and as a community, are experiencing significant changes to our personal, professional and social circumstances.
No doubt there are times we feel overwhelmed, and there are times when we can say, “I’ll try to give what I can”. And there have been three occasions that are exemplars of this in my first month as a new CEO that gives me much faith that we will pull through this together.
Young Mel* called to offer to “help during these messy times” as she thinks about her Nan in New Zealand and the elderly in the community that struggle with getting to the shops. Tim* offered the use of his ute and trailer to deliver necessary goods to those in need. Ken* dropped into our office looking to “making an impact” through volunteering.
Volunteer West endeavours to channel this spirit of generosity of as much as we can. We continue to support our community members who have expressed interest in volunteering through conversations over the phone and emails. We will add and share resources to our website to better facilitate online engagement and communication. Our office is closed due to lockdown measures now in place.
Social distancing measures mean that volunteering opportunities that rely on face-to-face time may not go ahead and organisations need time to adapt their programs. During this time, we ask for your patience throughout the volunteering matching process. We acknowledge that volunteers may not be able to engage in activities they desired; and equally, new volunteers emerge to give what they can where needed.
Practising social distancing
As we are called upon to play our part to make the biggest impact by staying at home and practicing physical distancing, there are actions we can take to sustain our social connectedness and mental wellbeing:
Drop a note in your neighbours’ letterboxes to say you can help, such as calling once-a-week to check-in or keep each other company
Start or join a local social media group (eg. Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter etc) focused on providing support to each other
Virtual playgroup sessions: Host a play-date with online video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Skype.
One lesson I’ve learnt from this pandemic is that as one individual, I can make a big difference to the health of the community by breaking the chain of transmission. Each one of us can make a difference with acts of kindness that will ripple through the community.
We will pull through this together.
*names changed to respect anonymity