National Volunteer Week 2020 Celebrations

National Volunteer Week is celebrated every year at the end of May. This year’s theme was “changing communities, changing lives”, and represents all the amazing volunteers in Australia that work so hard to make not only the community a better place but also the lives of the individuals.

This year Ardoch’s celebrations were quite different to how we would normally celebrate our volunteers and National Volunteer Week. The health crisis means that our plans were adapted to the online world to accommodate social distancing and the health and wellbeing of all involved.

However, nothing was going to stop us from celebrating the incredible work of our volunteers over the last year. Over 2019, Ardoch’s 1,773 volunteers contributed 35,323 hours across 135 partner sites, helping to support the education of over 18,700 children. Volunteers are vital to Ardoch and this impact would not be possible without the dedication and commitment of our volunteers.
We celebrated this amazing contribution by sharing a thank you video message from the whole Ardoch team to our volunteers. We also shared across our social media a few volunteer stories highlighting their reason for volunteering and key memorable moments.

The high point of the week though, was the virtual morning tea, where Ardoch’s Patron in Chief, the Governor of Victoria made a special appearance, thanking our volunteers for all the work they do in the community. She especially enjoyed hearing from our volunteers about their experience supporting the education and engagement of children in their local area.

From all of the Ardoch team, thank you again. We look forward to continuing to support children and young people living in disadvantaged communities, with the help of our amazing volunteers.