Star Volunteers 2022

Our volunteers are the best in south London! Without them, the work we do supporting older people and those with dementia would not be possible. With this in mind, we are delighted to present awards to some fantastic volunteers who have worked exceptionally hard over the past year.

Though all of our volunteers are hugely deserving of an award, we somehow managed to whittle our list of nominees down to 5 volunteers who we thought really deserved some recognition.

Lucy Edgeworth

Shortly after they met, Lucy's befriendee was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In the months that followed Lucy was an amazing support to both her befriendee and the befriendee's husband, both of whom did not have other people to rely on for help. Lucy visited up until the week her befriendee sadly died. Lucy had built an incredibly warm relationship with the husband also, supporting him through his grief. It was a huge assistance to them that Lucy was in their life, and Lucy enjoyed their relationship also. We are offering Lucy an award because she had to completely adapt her expectations of being a befriender to someone in order to offer the support she did, and she rose to this challenge so amazingly well.

Andrea Longley

Andrea has been a wonderfully dedicated Link Age Southwark volunteer befriender to a lady who lives alone, with dementia, and with no next of kin in London. Andrea began telephone befriending in February 2021 during the second wave of the pandemic. Then, as society began to open up again, Andrea started to visit her befriendee at home once a week; something that the service user was delighted about as she reported feeling very socially isolated. Her and Andrea do the crossword together most weeks. Also, Andrea who is green-fingered has been helping her to revive her indoor plants, many of which took a hit when her mobility declined. Though Andrea reports that her befriendee does not recall her name from one week to the next, she feels that she greatly enjoys her company and her regular visits. She was very touched when Andrea offered to visit her son's grave on her behalf. This proved to be of great comfort to her who had been troubled at not being able to visit her son's grave since becoming housebound. Finally, Andrea has successfully fundraised for a wheelchair for her befriendee – as the referral process through NHS/Social Services was proving lengthy.

Ann Quinton

Ann has been supporting the Volunteer Team as an Admin Volunteer. She is hugely committed and reliable, coming in for 2-3 hours every fortnight to help us with data entry and anything else we need help with. She never complains about our sometimes-tricky database, and takes any new tasks in her stride. She helps us to be a better, more efficient service, and for that, we thought she deserved an award!

Charles Rossetti

Charles is 80 himself, but never lets his age hold him back in his role as befriender. He helps with his befriendee's shopping, even taking a trolley on the bus each week. In spite of his own health problems, he has no issues with going above and beyond for the service user he supports.

Superstar Volunteer - Gill Booth

Gill has been involved with the Link Age Southwark since 2001. Formerly a  trustee, and more recently a befriender, Gill has also been active member of the volunteer fundraising committee for many years. She never misses a meeting and isalways putting herself forward to lead or support at our events, helping us to raise valuable funds. Morerecently, Gill took on our monthly birthday card volunteer role, in memory of her friend who did them before she passed away. This role involves writing and sending birthday cards to our Service Users on a weekly basis, every month and it is a constant job. One month, the post office sent ‘non-stick’ stamps, and Gill had 81 cards to send! Gill is extremely self-sufficient and completes any task presented to her with ease - we feel she deserves to be recognised for this!  

A huge well done, not just to our winners, but to ALL of our amazing volunteers for their hard work in 2022!

Volunteer Awards 2021