Come and Join Us!
Our volunteers are the heart and soul of the shop.
Being a completely volunteer-run enterprise makes our shop a special place with an outstanding ethos of friendliness, care, support, and pride in what we do.
We have volunteers from all kinds of backgrounds and ages, 14 years to 80+. Everyone is valued and appreciated.
There are so many ways you can volunteer at the shop: serving behind the counter, filling shelves, helping with accounts and book-keeping, gardening, cleaning, ordering, weighing produce, tidying… the list is endless. Every contribution helps our shop to serve the community.
The great thing about volunteering is that you get as much out of it as you put in - win, win!!
Volunteers tell us how much they love the time they spend in the shop, and how they feel connected to their community and have got to know their neighbours. So many have formed new friendships (we’ve even had two marriages of couples who met in the shop!)
These are some of the things our team have said about their volunteering:
"I feel much more part of the village."
"I've met so many freindly people."
These are some of the things our customers say about the service we provide:
"It is wonderful to always be greeted by a smiling face."
"The range of products is so wide and many are locally sourced."
We arrange volunteer socials throughout the year, which are a great way to make more friends.
For young people, volunteering presents a great opportunity to get a taste of working life in a friendly and supportive environment. They learn lots of new skills, and this is also great for their CVs. form!
We do, of course, carry out DBS checks for all our volunteers, which allows us to have under 18s working in the shop.
Volunteering with us is very flexible and can be on an ad hoc basis. You don’t need to make a regular commitment, but you can sign up ahead to a particular shift if you prefer. We have a user-friendly app for organising the rota for counter shifts. For other roles, such as filling shelves, cleaning, gardening, it's fine to just pop in when you have a bit of spare time, even if it's just half an hour; you’ll always be welcome!
You will receive any training you need, all quite straightforward, and you can take it your own pace. We always make sure that newer volunteers have an experienced volunteer working alongside them. Don’t let the till put you off if you’re a bit of a technophobe - it’s simpler than it looks.
Since we opened, we have collectively done tens of thousands of hours of voluntary work - over 20,000 hours behind the till alone!
In June 2022, we were awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service for “an outstanding contribution to society”. We are all extremely proud of this great achievement.