For Volunteers' Week, we’d like to celebrate our new volunteer Sam!
Hi, I’m Sam, and I volunteer for SmokeFree Hull as a Community Engagement Volunteer helping the service at community events and signposting people to SmokeFree Hull for support in stopping smoking.
I wanted to start volunteering for my local stop smoking service, as I wanted to help people. To give something back and do something positive. I know the damage smoking can do as I’ve used the service myself when I wanted to quit smoking, and so I wanted to encourage others to use it too.
A memorable moment for me was being at the hospital on ‘No Smoking Day’ to help promote the service, and going outside to talk to patients, who were seriously ill, but they were still going outside to smoke. This was a wake-up call on how powerful an addiction smoking really is, and why the service exists to support people.
I feel my role has evolved since I first started as a volunteer, I have grown more confident in talking to people about the options SmokeFree Hull offer for support, and I’m learning more at each event that I go to.
Since joining Change Grow Live and the SmokeFree Hull team, I’ve learned about much more than smoking, such as safeguarding, social services and all the protections in place in these jobs. I’ve got access to lots of virtual learning, and I’ve been introduced to using Microsoft which is new to me too.
There were challenges initially, I was nervous about chatting to people as this is out of my comfort zone, but this has got easier with practice. I’ve have also got more organised with my availability and fitting volunteering in alongside my other commitments as well.
I feel my work with the team has a real impact on the service, and their clients, I can support the team at events when staff are unavailable or ill. I bring a bit of diversity, sometimes a different viewpoint, and my own personal experience of smoking and then using the service to quit, which I think is really useful for others to hear.
There’s a lot of time and preparation to put in before you can start volunteering, but the training is there for a reason, and I agree it needs to be that way!
I’m part of a passionate and dedicated team and it feels good to support them and good to have signed-up people to use the stop smoking service. I hope they’ll feel the benefits just like I have.
