Dogs Trust

I have a bit of a different theme for today's post, so bear with me if this doesn't interest you (although I hope it does, because it's a good cause). Anyway, I recently started volunteering at a Dogs Trust shop, and I just wanted to talk a bit about volunteering in general.

My school has been pretty insistent in the past year or so that we dedicate some time to volunteering. This could be in school or outside of it, and to be honest it was just easier for me to give up my time to mentor a year seven in English. I was doing this before my head of sixth form started to remind us about it, so it was natural just to use this as my volunteering. I didn't really look about volunteering elsewhere until recently, and even then it was more to gain experience as I'd had a few unsuccessful job applications.

It was actually a bit of luck that I landed the role. I had gone into town to get some bits and bobs for my EPQ and for Christmas, and decided to pop into the Dogs Trust shop to see if they had some cards. As I was paying I asked if they had any places available, and the woman at the till (who is now a colleague haha) got me to meet the manager. She gave me a form to fill in and organised a time for an interview for the following weekend. I had a work experience placement but that was all I had to go on, so my retail training was limited. The manager was lovely, however, and assured me that they would show me how to use the till and things like that.

Since then, every Wednesday I give up some of my time to help them out. Sometimes it is quiet, and it does get a little boring but I realise that it is completely worth it, and not just in terms of having something to put on my CV. It's worth it because in some small way I'm making a difference. My being there enables to manager/assistant manager to get on with other jobs that need doing, and although I'm not selling the products like a street vendor mights, I still get to serve the customers that are contributing monetarily to Dogs Trust.

Dogs Trust is a brilliant charity. The 'a dog is for life, not just for Christmas' campaign is probably one of the better known charity slogans. They do an incredibly jobs of rehoming and rescuing dogs but it can't be done without the help of people like you and me. If you would like to find out more about Dogs Trust, click here and you'll be able to find out more about what they do, how to get involved yourself and of course see if there are any dogs at your nearest centre that need a good home.

We all give up our time, whether its for reading a book or to watch a TV programme, so why not use that spare time to help a good cause?

Until next time.