Category: Volunteer Stories

We all know that volunteers support sporting events across the world – at both a grassroots level and at major sporting events – the World Para Athletics Championships are no exception. Mary O’Leary, who you may remember from our Rio Olympics blog last year, was Team Attaché for Team Ireland. She reflects on her experience.

“Well another great volunteering & sporting event has come to an end. It’s amazing how time goes so fast but during the course of the World Para Athletics there were so many happy memories and experiences to cherish.  Getting selected to be a ‘Runner’ at the Championships was a real honour but then to be offered the role of Team Attaché for Team Ireland – well, just made my heart full of pride.  The atmosphere is unbelievable from the spectators, fellow volunteers, athletes and support staff – it all creates such a positive vibe that it was impossible not to feel happy to be a part of such an event. And when the school children arrive excited and asking for high-fives – their enthusiasm and spirit for the occasion and willingness to cheer every athlete in the stadium was just wonderful and very contagious.

I enjoyed all aspects of my role and loved supporting my team at all their events.  I was lucky to experience Team Ireland winning 7 medals and that meant 7 medal ceremonies. Being with the team and making sure the athletes’ families were allowed close access to the stage was part of my role at ceremonies. Singing the Irish National Anthem wasn’t compulsory, but I was not going to miss the opportunity, so the fact I got to do it four times, and also to wear my Irish flag earrings – was simply amazing. I even got the chance to wear my shamrock earrings on other days. The entire experience was just wonderful and my face must have shown just how much as I overheard someone saying how much ‘Mary loves a ceremony!

The entire experience has given me so many lovely memories but handing the Irish flag to Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop after they won their gold medals, and then being able to watch them on their lap of honour and being interviewed still holding their flags, was just fabulous. Michael surprised me in the Heroes Village by thanking me for all the support I had given him and the team. What a great team and I feel so proud to have played a small part in the success of the World Para Athletics 2017.”

Allie Sheehan volunteers with Young Community Leaders – a programme which enables young people to develop practical skills for personal, work or student life. At 22 years old, she tells us how she developed a love of volunteering from a young age.

I have always loved helping out, and from helping out I found my love for volunteering. I have been volunteering from a young age. The love started from when I was in transition year in school, we had to complete a week of community action as part of our work experience. I volunteered with St. Michaels House, a day centre in my community; this is when I found that I loved being part of my community. I then started a program called Young Community Leaders, which allowed me to develop the skills I needed to be an extraordinary leader. The program provided me with amazing volunteer opportunities like SpotsVStripes campaign for the 2012 London Olympics, which meant not only was I involved with my local community but also in the country’s community. I got to travel around the country and be involved in the organisation of family fun days. The course helped me make a lot of friends and it created a lot of opportunities for me, volunteering at the family events helped me to decide to go on to study Event Management in DIT.

I feel that volunteering is an amazing way to give back to the community, but it can also be used to better yourself. It is perfectly fine to volunteer for something for personal gain, whether it’s to improve skills or make contacts for the future. Volunteering is a way for people to gain experience in many different areas and getting to know a lot of different people.

I also think volunteering is amazing for a person’s mental health, especially for me. Volunteering within my community and completing the Young Community Leaders course has helped me gain so much confidence. I have developed a positive mind-set since completing the course and I have used that to set and achieve more goals.

I believe that volunteering is beneficial to everyone, as it helps people develop themselves as well as giving something back to the community. We are all constantly learning and improving and volunteering helps us to do this, we can also gain experience in lots of different areas, which not only makes us feel great, but looks amazing on a C.V.

I still volunteer with the Young Community Leaders and I am still learning new skills and knowledge all the time. It is amazing to pass on what I’ve learned to other people who participated in the Young Community Leaders programme, and that is satisfaction in itself.

Patrice Fanning founded TWi (Technically Write IT) in 2011, having recognised an opportunity for an Irish-based company to offer fully managed high-quality writing, editing, and documentation solutions to leading hi-tech multinationals. She tells the story of how volunteering has always been an integral part of her life and how it’s been incorporated into the ethos of her company.

Growing up, volunteering was very much part of family life. My Dad was heavily involved with St. Vincent de Paul, while my mother and her friends ran a Gorta charity shop, and both of my parents were habitually involved with other charity events and activities – anything from flag days to coffee mornings.

Encouraged to support causes I believed in, I participated in numerous initiatives throughout school and college: running a student chapter of Amnesty International, being a volunteer leader in summer camps for low-income families, carol singing at Christmas, participating in sponsored fasts, walks, runs, you name it.

After graduating, I began working with the software company SAP, and got involved in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme. During my five-year stint there, I volunteered with Junior Achievement Ireland, teaching local school children basic principles of business and the working world. I also took part in Ability West’s ‘befriending’ programme and was paired with an amazing girl with Down Syndrome who I met weekly for social activities like cinema, concerts, or shopping.

I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2011, when I set up TWi to provide technical communication services to multinationals. Luckily, incredible support was available through the Rubicon Centre, CIT’s business incubation centre, as well as local business networks such as it@cork and Cork Chamber. I’m incredibly grateful to the individuals who volunteered their time and skills to help me get started.

Initially, TWi had no formal CSR programme. We began with ad hoc donations or sponsorships, sporadic voluntary engagement in local activities, and a commitment to give a portion of our annual profits to charity.

In 2015, we set up an internal Charity and Community Involvement (CCI) group to develop a more structured CSR strategy. In 2016, we focused our support on Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland (AADI) and Cork Simon. This year, we continue to support Cork Simon, along with a new charity partner, Pieta House.

TWi employees have been integral to developing the company’s CSR strategy, volunteering their personal free time to partake in activities including maintenance days at Cork Simon residential properties, coffee mornings, flag days, supermarket bag packing, Cork Simon’s Christmas Jumper day, and the Pieta House’s Darkness into Light event. They’ve also engaged in ‘skill-based volunteering’, offering their core professional skills (writing, editing, and proofreading) to improve the quality of reports, funding applications, and software user instructions for our charity partners.

By integrating volunteering and CSR activities into our company’s culture, our collective contribution has far exceeded what any individual could have achieved independently. From a team-building perspective, we’ve gotten back as much or more than we’ve given.

Our CSR programme encourages volunteering and makes it more convenient. With all the competing demands on our time, it can be valuable to highlight and facilitate tangible volunteering opportunities for staff, along with any willing friends or family.

In my experience, volunteering can be immensely rewarding and have far-reaching and positive effects, regardless of our circumstances and whether we’re on the giving or receiving side.

*This is an abridged version of a longer blog by Patrice which can be found here.

Cathy is a Youth Mentor with Le Chéile who provide a mentoring service to young people involved with Young Person’s Probation. Mentors act as a positive role model, advisor and friend. They work with a young person for 3 hours a week for up to 2 years.

I found out about Le Chéile from a volunteering website a few years ago. Volunteering with LChéile is a very uplifting and fulfilling experience. I’ve made many a friend through the volunteering and enjoy all the new activities and skills I learn. They’re skills I can use in everyday life. I’ve found it’s helped me grow as a person.

There are many challenges but I think a big one for mentoring is not to get too attached. You have to make sure the boundaries are in place at all times. Also, seeing so much potential in a young person that they can not see in themselves can be hard, but with time this can be worked on.

For anybody starting a new match, I would advise them to be patient. It can be hard starting off but the young person is in the same position. Be yourself and enjoy the experience. Share your experience with the rest of the group in supervision. It’s amazing the little tips you can get from others which work with your mentee. It’s important to enjoy the mentoring experience and I believe that even small changes can have a huge impact on the mentee’s life. If you fail, try, try, try again – it’s worth it in the end.

There are many high points, but for me one of the biggest is seeing my young person’s confidence grow and seeing her mature into a fantastic young adult and complete her Junior Cert.

Gráinne Flynn has been volunteering for 10 years. Living with Type 1 Diabetes, Gráinne was keen to meet and help other people in her situation. She never imagined how much volunteering could change her life.

I’ve been volunteering for 10 years! And the most important thing I have learned from volunteering is that it’s more than just the reward for doing good; the benefits, for me, have been tenfold.

The numerous volunteering opportunities I’ve received have enabled me to create a local diabetes support community when I desperately needed it, become an empowered person with diabetes, fostered a diabetes advocate, allowed me to grow and develop as a person, and ultimately find my calling! But I could not have done any of that without the help of training from my local volunteer centre in Clare (Dolores & Sharon) and Diabetes Ireland.

I have lived with Type 1 diabetes for 24 years. Living with type 1 diabetes requires a great deal of concentration and mental energy. It’s not just about taking insulin and healthy eating. It requires calculating the amount of that medication based on what my blood sugar is at that point, how much carbohydrate (yes, I weigh carbs) I am about to eat and how physically active I’m likely to be in the next 4 to 6 hours and more. It’s a lot of work.

Type 1 diabetes didn’t stop me from doing anything in my life but, living with diabetes can feel very isolating.

In 2007, I moved back to Ireland after a four-year stint living in the US. I was a stay at home parent with two very small children and didn’t know very many people in my new town in my old country.

I was receiving support from my medical team but it just wasn’t enough for me. I needed a way to meet more people with diabetes.

So, with the help of Diabetes Ireland, we started Clare Diabetes Support. That was ten years ago. We became a community that helps each other live with the daily challenges of living with diabetes through sharing our own experiences.

In 2011, Diabetes Ireland decided to shorten their name and needed a new logo. As a graphic designer, they approached me to volunteer to do this. I still have to remind myself wherever I see it that I helped do that. It’s kind of awesome!

Also through volunteering with Diabetes Ireland, I adapted the Australian “Type 1 Diabetes Starter Kit; A Guide for Newly Diagnosed Adults” for Irish people with diabetes. What I learned during the process of adapting this booklet was most of what I needed to organise a national type 1 diabetes conference called Thriveabetes.

I created my first blog post in May 2010 to connect with more people with diabetes. I often say that I blogged from inside a closet for many years because I didn’t have the confidence to say, “I write a blog”. Until 2015, when I received a scholarship to attend an Advocacy MasterLab in Florida in July 2015. This was A-Mazing. I learned so much from this experience and six months later I came out of that closet and actually told people I write two blogs!

And there you have it! What started out as a cry for help became a “what can I do to help you.” Thriveabetes: The Thrive with Type 1 Diabetes conference is probably what I spend most of my volunteer time on these days. This event uses every skill I have learned though all of those years of volunteering.

I have found something I am passionate about. I can’t wait to see where volunteering brings me next!

If you want to hear more from Gráinne, you can find her on Twitter @BSugrTrampoline or read her personal blog http://bloodsugartrampoline.com/ You can alos learn more about the Type 1 Diabetes Conference at http://thriveabetes.ie/ / @Thriveabetes

Mark Cummins volunteered at the Dublin Bay Prawn Festival during St. Patrick’s Weekend 2017.

The day began in earnest with the volunteers meeting on the green where the festival was set up – this was my second ever event as a volunteer and the largest group I have volunteered with. Chiara, Daiga and Stuart were already chatting and handing out goody bags when I arrived. I already knew a few faces in the group and was made to feel very welcome. We were each given some tea and coffee and a waterproof jacket.

Luckily I was spared the unique pleasure of wearing a Leprechaun costume two days in a row by some of the other more enthusiastic volunteers. Each of us was assigned to a particular area and given a prawn punt to exchange for lunch at any of the stands. My position for the day was at the main entrance with another volunteer Maria who was a veteran of many events.

The first trainload of visitors arrived in a wave and we were soon inundated with people asking questions looking for toilets and cash machines or just asking about the event itself. The event volunteers were spread out from the train station to the entrance of the food village and our Leprechauns went down a treat with the younger visitors with dozens of picture opportunities were taken.

Our lunch was provided free of charge by Kanoodles in the breakoff tent & our prawn punts also bought us some delicious seafood from the best restaurants in Howth.

The day progressed from there with thousands of people passing through the entrance, we were all looked after & ample amounts of chocolate were supplied when energy levels began to dip. Some well-timed live music put a spring back in our step & the day ended on a high with a debriefing followed by the return of the Leprechaun suits.

If you’d like to try out volunteering but are not sure if it’s for you, event volunteering is a great way to dip your toe in the water. For information visit www.eventvolunteers.ie.

Mary O’Leary was one of a handful of Irish volunteers at last month’s Rio Olympics. Having volunteered as a Games Maker at London 2012 she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to have another unique experience. Here, she shares her story with us.

I just want to share some thoughts on my volunteer experience at the Rio Olympics 2016. I made the decision to go to Rio as I had such an amazing experience as a Games Maker in London 2012 and wanted to use my experience to support Rio in making the first Latin American Olympics a success. I volunteer in sports on a regular basis anything from local 5k run to bigger events but there is something special about volunteering in the Olympics. It feels like being in a bubble where positive energy takes over and everyone is looking for a good experience and supporting each other.

The journey to being accepted and offered a role in the Olympics takes time- filling in an application form, taking part in group Skype interview, waiting for acceptance and then confirmation of role takes about 18months but so worth the wait. My role was with the Press Tribune team at the weightlifting event and I loved every minute of it – not something I thought I’d say about weightlifting in the past – but that’s the beauty of volunteering for a sport you know nothing about and have no previous interest in. You end up with respect for the sport & the athletes involved. My work involved ensuring the press were sitting in the correct places, had all the resources they required and supporting them to carry out their job. I also facilitated at the press conferences after the events and also helped journalists in the Mixed Zone when they wanted specific interviews with athletes. My team came from all over the world (in total 11 different countries) which was fantastic and I have made some great friends as a result of our time spent together. There is something great about working in a team who come together and share the unique experience of the Olympics. The crowds attending weightlifting are just wonderful all loud, cheering every athlete on and wanting everyone to do well. The screaming and stamping of feet needs to be experienced to believe – it’s unforgettable!

I have so many happy memories from seeing Usain Bolt  at the airport, the Gold medallist one night giving me his phone to take his photo, the silver medallist asking to have his photo taken with the volunteers but it’s the conversations with people on the journey to and from the events which was the most rewarding. Locals thanking us for coming to support Rio, athletes talking about their experience of the Games to other volunteers and their stories. You meet strangers and say ‘hello, where are you from?’ and then the conversation flows, it’s just brilliant. The sunrise in the morning and sunset going home made the journeys to and from my venue so beautiful.

It took time to settle into the travel arrangements in Rio but easy to understand once the journey had been completed. It was important to be aware of where all the venues were as once you put on the volunteer uniform everyone assumes you know everything about the Olympics so it was important to be prepared for the questions! The days can be long and tiring but the rewards of what you get back and the wonderful feedback make up for this. Rio was also a great holiday destination and we had time to visit the local sites and also attend some of the sporting events.

It is great to volunteer at the Olympics but also important to support grass roots sports and volunteer at our local clubs. This is where all athletes start out and also where the community spirit starts. If you are unsure where to start just ask your local clubs if they need any help. It doesn’t matter if you do not know the sport, we all have transferable skills and as long as we have a positive attitude and want to contribute to the success of an event be it local or a global event our help is needed and appreciated.

Another volunteering event has come to an end for me but what wonderful new friends I have made, I helped to support the success of weightlifting at Rio Games and have just wonderful happy memories of another exciting Olympics. The Olympics are a great opportunity to showcase volunteering as well as having a great adventure.

As my team leader said ”Mary it was great to have you in the team! Thanks for your effort, support and nice persons make a good team’- this makes it all worthwhile.