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!
Pick-up Team
We pick up unsold 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 morning for the set-up team to clean and 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 OLIO / 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 (Excel) so set-up teams can make up the required number of boxes on Tuesday before the visitors arrive.
Morning Set-up Team (Tuesday)
The morning team role involves unloading food from the cars of pick up teams, the Felix Project van, some surface cleaning to ensure that our hygiene is at the highest level in Room14 & the kitchen, sort out some vegetables & fruits and set up the tables with dry foods & tins.
Afternoon Set-up Team (Tuesday)
The Afternoon team arrives before we open to the public at 2pm to make up around 80-100 food boxes each week and ensure that the boxes and extra essentials are ready to be collected by our visitors. The café area and free charity clothes tables are also open to public from 2pm and the team will also set these up.
Welcome at Door
Stand at the entrance to greet and welcome visitors (with friendly smiles!) and direct people to 'Room 14' where they can collect free food boxes. Supervise and control the number of people who goes in to ensure that it will not be over clouded as it can be overwhelming for some visitors. If you're extravert, love meeting new people and enjoy chatting, this role is for you!
Front Desk
When visitors arrive, confirm the names and check them in. Expect ‘unexpected’ - sometimes people (walk-ins) just turn up at the door without pre-booking but that's O.K. Often people get referrals from Citizen Advice Bureau and come to the centre, e.g. Ukrainian refugees. Older generation may have heard about us from their neighbours and decide to visit us, too! We want to be inclusive and offer our support those who need it.
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 the guests can just turn up, feel a sense of belonging and build new friendships with our volunteers & other visitors.
Serving Food Boxes at table
Help the visitors 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. This is a great place to serve together with your friend or make new friends and meet your local neighbors.
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!
We 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, Twitter etc.) or hand out leaflets in our local area, this role is for you!
Fundraising
We want you to have fun fundraising, avoiding accidents and making sure you’ve set up your event correctly. If you are interested to organize a fund raising event for us with your community group, church, school etc. please do get in touch with us, we would love to hear your ideas and help you set up!
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.
Sutton Community Project
Apply Volunteer
If you would like to join our volunteer team, please fill in the form below detailing which volunteer role you are interested in and available date & time. Thank you!