Our Health Navigator Volunteers joined colleagues from Volunteer Centre Sutton and NHS South West London to celebrate the achievements of the project to date, including providing over 2,500 free health and wellbeing checks since May 2023.

October marks another Sutton Soup, as Peter Struik had the limelight in July, we’ve asked Jeff Richards, another “serial volunteer” to share his story to help inspire others to try volunteering.

Our Health Navigators, including some of our youngest volunteers, 16-18 yr olds, were out in force to provide free health and wellness checks at this annual family fun day.

For this month’s volunteer story, we asked one of our Young Commissioners who you may recognise from our homepage, to share a bit more of her story and how anyone can volunteer and make a difference, even if feeling a little nervous at the start.

Our Bonus August picnic ‘n’ play was a great opportunity for our Volunteer Advisors to get to know organisations looking for volunteers even better, to help our volunteer matching service improve.

Marking one year of our Volunteer Story of the Month feature, we talk to Peter Struik “serial volunteer” extraordinaire, Chair of Sutton Soup, and active volunteer with EcoLocal, amongst many others!

3rd-9th June is Volunteers' Week, and the 40th anniversary of it. The celebration starts today. It’s a chance to recognise, celebrate and thank the UK’s incredible volunteers for all they contribute to our local communities, the voluntary sector, and society as a whole. We wanted to shine a light on an extraordinary young volunteer in the borough: Dom.

For May, a month bringing awareness to mental health, especially with the 2024 theme being Movement: Moving more for our mental health, we had a quick chat with Sara Lee from Cre8 Football.

A welcome-to-the UK course from Volunteer Centre Sutton helped Cynthia into volunteering as a Health Navigator.

Three amazing volunteers from the Hong Kong Community in Sutton have kindly shared their stories in the run up to Lunar New Year celebrations this month.

Instead of a daytime Volunteer Coordinators' Forum in January, we had a drop in evening social at Shinner and Sudtone followed by the main event of Sutton Soup. It enabled those of you who volunteer around a full time job to join us too.

Joyful January is back for 2024 - daily doses of inspiration on our Facebook and Instagram pages to uplift your spirits. See how volunteering in our community helps both individuals and communities feel joyful and maybe a tempted to have a go yourself and get your friends along! Here's the roundup for Week 4.

Joyful January is back for 2024 - daily doses of inspiration on our Facebook and Instagram pages to uplift your spirits. See how volunteering in our community helps both individuals and communities feel joyful and maybe a tempted to have a go yourself and get your friends along! Here's the roundup for Week 3.

Joyful January is back for 2024 - daily doses of inspiration on our Facebook and Instagram pages to uplift your spirits. See how volunteering in our community helps both individuals and communities feel joyful and maybe a tempted to have a go yourself and get your friends along! Here's the roundup for Week 1.

This month we are celebrating Befriending Week from 1-7th November. Fresh from her Serpentine Swim fundraising for us, Jo Bolton shares her story of being a befriender as part of Sutton Befrienders, along with her other volunteering and fundraising support.

Sutton Vision shares their story, just ahead of Befriending Week, of Adrian who volunteers as a telephone befriender for them.

Alongside a MAPS Mentor, Sonny learnt to express himself, overcome his fears and and find more stability in life during a turbulent time.

This month we are celebrating both Volunteer Centre Sutton and St Raphael's Hospice being chosen as the Sutton Mayor's Charities of the year. This October we hear from Richard Ming, a volunteer from St Raphael's Hospice.

Every month we are sharing inspirational volunteer stories, with September being the start of a new term and school year we thought it would be good to hear from one of the younger voices of the volunteering world.

Can we do it, YES we Ken!

A mentoring pair enjoying a meal, a game and a smile at the end of their year long mentoring relationship:

Sutton Befrienders walking tennis group's seven week trial in June and July has proved so successful it will return in September!

Shining the light on a new volunteer story this month to give further insight into those individuals who transform our borough.

Volunteer Health Navigators providing health checks to the local Ukraine Community at the 'Homes for Ukraine' event at The Salvation Army

Our annual event to celebrate the impact of Volunteer Centre Sutton and celebrate all that has been achieved over the past year took place on the afternoon of Thursday 6th July.

We were delighted to welcome Ellie Simmonds to Sutton to meet some of our activity buddies, filmed for BBC Morning Live in the run up to Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day.

At our most recent MAPS social, we set out to create a collaborative piece of art, in recognition of 2023's #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek theme “Let’s Connect”.

In collaboration with Cheam Coterie, Volunteer Centre Sutton hosted a 'Welcome to the UK' course for Hong Kongers who have recently settled in Sutton, as part of our Integrating Sutton project.

Flora and her daughter Ariel moved to the UK 10 months ago

Our MAPS mentoring project supports many young carers with one to one mentoring.

Give the gift of time this Christmas by volunteering in Sutton

"During my mentoring year I have learnt It can be good to meet new people" Jaz, aged 12

"You meet so many different people every time you turn up for a shift, whether you're working with them or helping them and every day is another great experience." Read about the experiences of one our Nonsuch Vaccine Site volunteers

We could not be more proud of Pete Jemson, winner of the "Oustanding Volunteer" award at the 2020 Sutton Community Awards, and now nominated by Sutton Council for BBC Radio London's "Make a Difference Hero" awards

Congratulations to one of our longest standing MAPS Mentors, Derek Terrell, who was awarded Outstanding Volunteer at the 2019 Sutton Community Awards

Read Edina's story about her volunteering journey into full time employment

Pat Stanley, Volunteering Development Manager, shares the key take-aways from our July Volunteering Forum

For Refugee Week 2019, our Community Engagement Coordinator, Marta Rocco, reflects on her own volunteering experiences supporting refugees

Throughout Volunteers' Week we're sharing 'thank you' messages to volunteers from organisations in Sutton. The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity would like to thank Valerie Allsopp.

Throughout Volunteers' Week we're sharing 'thank you' messages to volunteers from organisations in Sutton. The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity would like to thank Denise Clarke.

Throughout Volunteers' Week we're sharing 'thank you' messages to volunteers from organisations in Sutton. Age UK Sutton would like to thank Rob Campion.

Throughout Volunteers' Week we're sharing 'thank you' messages to volunteers from organisations in Sutton. Home-Start Sutton would like to thank Sue Elson

Throughout Volunteers' Week we're sharing 'thank you' messages to volunteers from organisations in Sutton. Age UK Sutton would like to thank Sue

Throughout Volunteers' Week we're sharing 'thank you messages to volunteers from organisations in Sutton, starting with a thank you to one of our own volunteers

Throughout Volunteers' Week we're sharing 'thank you' messages to volunteers from organisations in Sutton. St Raphael's Hospice would like to thank Jenny Watkins

Volunteers' Week is a chance to celebrate and say thank you for the fantastic contribution millions of volunteers make across the UK.

For the fourth year running, Volunteer Centre Sutton is delighted to support ShareTheMiracle, a community initiative collecting chocolate eggs to donate to those less fortunate at Easter.

Between the 1st and 24th December, we're bringing you a new volunteering opportunity from organisations in Sutton and beyond

A brief summary of some of the findings from our recent research pilot looking into the effects of volunteering on health and wellbeing

Pat, our Volunteering Development Manager, relates the story of Patrick, one of the participants in our prescribed volunteering project, who said that volunteering is the connection between his old world and his new world.

We asked Judith Smith, Pastor of Horizon Church Sutton to write a guest blog about the positive experiences her church has had hosting Employer-Supported Volunteer teams at her church building, from which several community projects are run. She shares about the impact of ESV, some of the challenges and her top tips for any organisation thinking of hosting an ESV team.

Priya volunteers at the Refugee and Migrant Network in Sutton, where she teaches English as a Second language to adults