‘Helping others has meant so much to me in these dark times’
Meet the volunteers using furlough to make a difference
OUT of work through unemployment or furlough, a group of people have found a new lease of life by helping the community they live in.
Matt Thomson, 35, lives in Irlam with his mum. Before the pandemic, he was a chef working for a restaurant group in Tenerife.
Last year he decided to return to the UK to finally settle down. Then the pandemic hit and all of a sudden he could no longer find a job in his dream profession.
“As a chef I’ve always been in work, to not have any work is something I’d never experienced before,” he explained.
“I couldn’t deal with sitting in the house all day, I had to move back into my mum’s house which is quite a degrading thing for 35-year-old to do anyway but I didn’t have any choice.”
During the first lockdown, he volunteered as a chef at The Church Green in Lymm before he got a job in a warehouse.
Feeling unsatisfied, he soon left and is now back in the kitchen cooking and delivering free school meals for kids in Irlam and Cadishead and also providing food for struggling families.
“The food goes out to families that are finding it difficult at the moment,” he said.
“It’s meant so much to me in these dark times, the nice comments that I receive everyday keep me going.”
A recent report by Resolution Foundation has found that almost two million people have not worked for at least six months due to the pandemic.
The report also showed that a majority of those affected have been on full-time furlough or have gone from furlough to unemployment and back.
David Marsden, 51, has been on furlough since April when he got the call from his bosses at his corporate travel job.
“I did the normal things, cleaned the flat and decorated,” he said.
“My partner was working from home as well and it to got to the point where I ran out of things to do and was under her feet a little bit.”
As a form of exercise David started walking and discovering his local area, something he had been unable to do in the past because of a busy work schedule.
In June he noticed an ad for a volunteer program and started taking part in sessions with them.
“I did gardening and [now]
do a couple of litter picks with Salford Litter Heroes, it’s great for me because I have things to do each week,” he said. “Before, I could see the litter in Salford but I was so busy with working life I never had the time or thought about doing anything about it, but it’s certainly got my attention now. I’m manic about it!” David is now the secretary of Friends of Peel Park and says outside of giving him something to do, the role has also helped him learn new skills. “I’ve been learning a lot, I’ve learned loads of gardening skills and learned so much about flowers and plants. I’ve also learned some social media skills thanks to doing admin work for the groups.” Ruth Hobson, a single mother of two from Worsley, has also started volunteering. A gym owner, she has been out of work and at home with her daughter Lottie and 14-year-old son Oscar. For Ruth, the pandemic has meant she has lost the sense of community she had at her gym.
She is even more concerned about how her daughter is coping without seeing her friends. “My gym was all about community without that I feel a little bit lost,” she said. “I was conscious of my four-year-old daughter too, she’s a little bit isolated with school closed and no friends.” Ruth became a litter champion late last year to keep both she and her daughter occupied, and to give Lottie the opportunity to interact with others in a safe and socially distanced environment. “I thought I’d become a litter champion, that way I could get her out and about and people are friendly and chat to her and ask her questions,” she said. “That’s the only interaction she has outside of me. “Its really nice to see a clean route that a lot of kids walk to school as opposed to it being covered in debris and beer bottles.” Danielle Wright is the founder of the Salford Litter Heroes. She was inspired to sort out Salford’s littering problem after moving to
Broughton and seeing the state of the streets.
She said: “I just got fed up of living in a tip, I grew up in Little Hulton but moved to Broughton and littering was so much worse there. “That’s what triggered me into starting the group and my first volunteer was my mum after I dragged her outside to litter pick.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic Danielle says the group has seen an influx of new volunteers taking it upon themselves to clean up Salford.
“In the past three months its gone insane.
“People just want to make a positive impact – they’re walking more and they’re seeing the impacts of littering. Before, people would just get in their cars head straight to work and back.”
“It’s amazing, the group is almost running itself now.”