Our aim at Vision Australia is to support our clients to live the life they choose and this month it’s our opportunity to thank the amazing people that give their time, knowledge and skills to help us make that possible.
May at Vision Australia is all about our volunteers as we take the time to let each and every one of them know how much we value the contribution they make to the lives of our clients and workforce.
Over the past year, our organisation has been fortunate enough to be supported by thousands of talented and passionate volunteers who have contributed an amazing amount of time, effort and expertise to support of people who are blind or have low vision.
This year we will again celebrate our volunteers across Australia, with nearly 30 events taking place across the country and I know, myself the other members of our Leadership Team and everybody else at Vision Australia is looking forward to their chance to say thank you.
We’ll be recognising all of our volunteers at those events, however we’ll be taking the time at them to give some special recognition to our long-serving volunteers.
This year we’re privileged to be able to recognise one volunteer for 40 years of service, another 12 for 25 years, 17 for 20 years, 48 for 15 years and another 62 for 10 years.
On the other end of the spectrum, we’ll also be recognising those who have joined us more recently, including the 508 volunteers who have now marked one year at Vision Australia.
In fact over the past 12 months, we’ve welcomed 882 new volunteers to the organisation and it’s amazing that to have so many new faces supporting us.
Over the past year we’ve also had just under 200 volunteers give their time to us who are aged 19 or under and it’s extremely pleasing so many young people are willing to help us with the work we do.
Not only is May a chance for us to thank our volunteers for the amount of work they do, it’s also an opportunity for us to recognise the variety of ways they support us.
Across just about everything we do as an organisation you’ll likely find the input or influence of one of our volunteers.
At many of our centres across the country you’ll find volunteers at the front desk and manning the phones. They’re also our Seeing Eye Dog puppy and foster carers and our talented audio describers.
They’re the driving force behind the valuable service provided by Vision Australia Radio and for many clients they’re an important link to the community by assisting with transport and other daily activities like reading the mail.
This is just an overview of all that our volunteers do. I urge all of our volunteers to come along to a local recognition event, get to know each other and spend some time with the local teams and most importantly, let us say thanks.
Interested in volunteering at Vision Australia? Find out more on our website or get in touch via 130 84 74 66 or email volunteer@visionaustralia.org.