Volunteering
Join our friendly Sutton Community Project family and make huge change happen in the London Borough of Sutton.
Take a look at our volunteering opportunities below to see what roles suits you best.
Volunteer with Us
We all want to help and make difference to the life of our local community, but sometimes we don't know where to start. There are various ways that you can help at the Thomas Wall Centre on Tuesdays or other days of the week if it suits you better. Please see below to find out which volunteer roles suit you. We would love to invite you to join our friendly Sutton Community Project Volunteer family!
Food Collection Team
We collect surplus food throughout the week from various locations in Sutton, North Cheam, Morden, Mitcham and Banstead. This role involves picking up food (and sometimes flowers) from allocated supermarket at instructed time by the Neighbourly. You will need a car to pick up from the supermarket and drop it off at the Thomas Wall Centre on Tuesday between 11:30am-2pm for the set-up team to clean, check its food hygiene and safety and securely store to distribute in the afternoon.
Admin / Communication (Mon-Tues)
Send out messages a day before to reserve the box for people and confirm their pick-up times on WhatsApp / SMS text / Messenger. If you are a good communicator, familiar with above apps and can send messages in a friendly timely manner, this role is for you! After accepting it, mark the names, a number of box and the pick-up time on the spread sheet, so that the set-up team can make up the required number of boxes on Tuesday before the visitors arrive.
Morning Set-up Team (Tuesday, between 11:30-2pm)
The morning team role involves unloading food from the cars of the Food Collection team / the Felix Project's van, some surface cleaning to ensure that our hygiene is at the highest standard in Room14, kitchen & the Library Café, sorting out some vegetables & fruits and set up the tables with dry foods & tins.
Afternoon Set-Up & Food Distribution Team (Tuesday between 2-6pm)
The Afternoon team arrives before we open to the public at 2pm to make up around 140-150 food boxes each week and ensure that the boxes and extra essentials are ready to be collected by our Neighbours (service users). The café area and free charity clothes tables are also open to public from 2pm and the team will also set these up.
Welcome & Veg Box Collection
Greet visitors with big smiles and guide them in the Room 14. Ensure that it is not overcrowded and there is enough room for people to move around in the right direction. Make them feel welcomed especially if they are visiting us for the first time and give them a quick tour / guide and explain what we do and how it works.
Receptionist at Front desk
Check in all the pre-registered service users (called ‘Neighbours’). Make a note of any new person and fill out the new Neighbours sheet so we know their names and contact details.
Citizen Advice Bureau or other local charities may send new people who may not have registered with us in advance. We are happy to offer them a box for they are often in desperate need.
Hospitality
Free tea, fresh coffee and cakes are served every week for both volunteers and visitors. Our guests are invited to the cafe area where they can have a drink (or two!) and enjoy chatting and meet their neighbors. Some visitors like to talk, be listened and share their life stories. It provides a safe place where anyone can just turn up, feel a sense of belonging and build new friendships with our volunteers & other visitors.
Serving Food Boxes at table
Help our Neighbours to pack food into their bags and monitor the food boxes are collected respectfully by our visitors. We need to ensure that everyone gets an equal amount of food and no one goes home without a box and hungry. This is a great place to serve together with your friend or make new friends and get to know your local people.
Set Down & Cleaning (5:30-6:30pm)
After a long afternoon, we want to leave the place spic 'n' span for the next community group to enjoy using the venue!
Please ensure the Room 14, kitchen & library are tidy and clean before closing the day. Wash up cups & plates and pack up the roller banner, empty cardboard boxes, put tables & chairs away and load all unused boxes into cars.
Delivery on Request
For those who cannot physically come to the centre to pick up food, we may be able to offer to deliver a box locally (SM1, SM2) if we have a capacity to do so. If you have a car and happy to deliver, please let us know.
Spread the Word
The more people share our work and raise the awareness of sharing, food waste, sustainable living and a safe place to meet, the better it becomes for everyone in our community! If you are happy to share our campaign on social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.) or hand out leaflets in our local area, this role is for you!
Fundraising
If you are interested in raising funds to support our work to continue to help families in need, please contact us through the form with your ideas. We would love to hear from you! You may like to organise a fund raising event yourself with your community group, church, school etc. or simply be part of our team to apply funding for various funding opportunities.
Sutton Community Project Volunteer Handbook
In this handbook, it will explain our vision, training, expectation and policy. You can view on PDF format from here.
Volunteer Roles
In this document, you will find the various roles from morning set ups, food distribution on Tuesday to other vital roles on other days of week.
What a volunteer says about
the Sutton Community Project
Hi, I’m Stella. Similar to many other HK families we’ve just moved to Sutton not long ago. Gratefully I have been joining this volunteering as Food Angel for 6 months since then.
For me, 'Right to Food' for everyone is vitally important. According to WTO doctrinal terms, it means anybody is entitled for their food to always be adequate, available and accessible. Local councils, food suppliers and NGOs are obliged to work collectively, and in solidarity, to ensure that the production and distribution system guarantees everyone’s such human rights. I strongly believe that Sutton Community Project runs by two local churches leaded under Andrew and the team are acting on a right direction to serve people in real needs, while helping the community to reduce unnecessary food waste.
I trust many of you agree with me that caring is to listen, be compassionate and willing to put the needs of others first. By observation, distributing healthy food boxes to our neighbour is only a means for us to show our warmth caring, especially for those who are struggling from hard times. Through tea & chat, we mutually share happiness and sadness, supporting each other and building friendships. As I am new to the UK, they help and teach me a lot to get along with this exciting and friendly community too. Anyone here can be a good carer and support other people. After all, this is a very enjoyable give and take social service that I found a lot of fulfillments.
Once again, thank you for the Sutton Community Project which connects all heart-linkers together. Especially I can see many experienced HKers are there every week to contribute their best efforts whole-heartedly. Men for and with others! I hope to see you all every Tuesday afternoon at the Thomas Wall Centre.