This is a guest blog from one of the winners of the 2019 Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS) – it focuses on It’s Good 2 Give, a charity that supports young cancer patients and their families, it is written by Co-founder and Chair Lynne McNicoll OBE MInstF.
This is the second of three blogs, see the others and more info here.
It’s Good 2 Give is a very proud recipient of the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. We were delighted to be invited to the City Chambers recently to be presented with the award and certificate by the Lord Provost in his role as Lord Lieutenant.
It’s Good 2 Give are a charity that supports young cancer patients and their families by trying to make their life a little bit easier on a day-to-day basis, they provide a range of support ranging from practical workshops to snacks on wards to essentials packs for parents and patients. In May 2017 they opened The Ripple Retreat, a purpose-built safe place for families and patients to use for short breaks, nestled on the shores of Loch Venachar.
Speaking on our behalf was Founding Patron Grant Stott – a local legend and amazing supporter for ten years of our charity – Grant talked about the services we provide and emphasised how much love we all had for what we do.
He was followed by our Senior Volunteer Marion Donaldson. Marion is one of those volunteers many charities aspire to having and we are super fortunate to have her in our team. Marion told the assembled audience how much she loved volunteering for us and with us. She emphasised how much love there was in our wee charity. She said we are a family of volunteers (even better she said, we all get on!).
[It’s Good 2 Give] are a family of volunteers… [and Marion] emphasised how much love there was in our wee charity
Marion told the audience about her various roles – from leading our snack team in the cancer ward at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children to supporting our housekeeping volunteers at our Ripple Retreat. She is happy to step in to support small businesses who want to know more about our charity and provide them with support, she packs and posts Christmas cards, she shops and most of all she encourages others to join her in her volunteering. I am very proud to have her in our team and delighted that, in her own words, volunteering for us gave her her mojo back.
I have loved volunteering for 14 years and will continue to do so and encourage others to join me too. Grant touched on our Young Ambassadors programme – we have 16 young ambassadors aged 10 to 18 who learn about volunteering, organising events, speaking in public, supporting our charity at its own events. I want them to love volunteering as I do, and – whether for us, or another charity – my goal is to encourage them to continue volunteering into adulthood and to hopefully become young Trustees of the future.
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