A message of thanks from a Transition to Work participant: “I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to participate in both the Fitted For Work and Transition To Work programs at a time in my life which has been financially difficult, and, quite emotionally taxing. The organisation, the facilitators, your corporate partners, the volunteers, and your donors, all play key, and valuable roles….simply – it’s a true tapestry of individuals/ organisations that make Fitted for Work work. My heartfelt thanks.”
We never underestimate the power of volunteering. As you know, at Fitted for Work we rely on volunteers to deliver our many services to women. Our volunteers are as diverse as our clients. They come from all walks of life with different backgrounds, from varied cultures. They all have one thing in common – they want to give back.
Recently we attended a dinner at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The evening was an opportunity to connect their employees with Fitted for Work and share the stories of their volunteer experiences, delivering our Job Preparation Workshops. Once again the volunteers around the table each had their own unique story and reason for volunteering and why it was important to them. Many had come from overseas to Australia and felt that it was important to give back to the community.
Volunteers told us of how their volunteering experience had taught them something new about themselves, how it had made them feel good to support another person and how they had been able to use their own experiences to relate to and help a woman to rebuild her confidence.
Each year at Fitted for Work we total up the volunteer hours that are donated to help women seeking work through our outfitting service. This financial year we have recorded 8435 hours through our 2 boutiques in Sydney and Melbourne. This does not even account for the corporate volunteer hours with support partners, pro bono hours through skilled volunteer projects or the many hours donated from our 195 mentors.
In a time when we know and appreciate the wellbeing benefits of volunteering for the individual on health, stress levels, a sense of purpose and connecting to other, we also wanted to take this opportunity to appreciate ours.
Amanda Carlile wrote this post as acting CEO.
