MANY WAYS OF CARING

The range of projects with which RSVP West becomes involved is as broad as people's needs and the interests and skills of the local organisers ...

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE OVER 50S    The Community Grants programme of Swindon Borough Council has funded four RSVP volunteers, led by Dave Brown, to raise awareness of climate change. The Climate Change and the over 50s project will target and engage as many people and groups in this age sector as possible across the Borough. Through personal and group discussion, advice, guidance and information will be given on the range of options available to enable them to take action to reduce their carbon footprint. The project is based upon, and develops, the resources elsewhere on this site.

THE LAW AND THE COFFEE  A group of volunteers, under the direction of the local RSVP organiser Violet Luton, seen serving a customer, operate a tea bar every weekday morning that provides refreshments and light snacks for lawyers, police, security staff and witnesses attending the magistrates court in Yate, South Gloucestershire.

THORNBURY COMMUNITY GARDEN   The Garden is a community venture supported by a team of volunteers. The original was closed in January 2007 but has been recreated in a derelict plot alongside the new community building. In a three-year project, the team cleared the site, laid foundations, added top soil, built pathways and a solar-powered water feature, and planted it out. It opened in 2008. The Garden is open to everyone, including wheelchair users and the disabled.

EASING THE LOAD  Shirley Stark organises a group of volunteers at one of the Bristol Abbeyfield homes to cook the main meal of the day for the elderly residents when the housekeeper has her weekly day off. She also organises trips out for the residents.

HELPING COUPLES  Local organiser Patrick Williams acts as liaison for the family contact centre in Swindon, formerly a part of the WRVS but now operated under the aegis of RSVP West. Couples with marital problems can leave their children under the safe supervision of volunteers there while they sort out their differences.

MEDICAL HELP  RSVP volunteers in Nailsea are kept busy making regular weekly collections of prescriptions for housebound local residents. The local doctors also take advantage of this service during their house calls by leaving prescriptions with patients; the surgery contacts the local volunteer team who collect the prescriptions and deliver the medication. Elsewhere in Nailsea, RSVP West volunteer drivers (such as Victor, right) are helping the local multiple-sclerosis therapy centre by transporting MS sufferers for treatment.

© 2003–10 RSVP West. Page last updated on 28 August 2010.