Volunteers to help spread festive cheer

Student Volunteering Cardiff is giving students and non-students alike the chance to volunteer with a series of charity events this week

A series of events hosted by a local charity that aims to support the elderly, the homeless and adults with disabilities is taking place throughout the city this week.

Winter Giving Week, which is being put on by Student Volunteering Cardiff (SVC), began yesterday (Monday 4 December) with a Christmas party for senior citizens, and will run until Thursday 7 December.

It features a vast array of events such as craft making for disabled adults and a Christmas party for the homeless, the latter of which will feature a festive buffet, Christmas card making and a Christmas raffle.  

As well as spreading some Christmas cheer to vulnerable groups, the events aim to give local people who might not have the time to regularly volunteer the chance to give something back to the community at Christmas time.

Therefore the week fits firmly into SVC’s philosophy of “giving the Cardiff community the opportunity to give a little, and gain a lot,” and, as the charity claims in a blog post, offers volunteers the perfect chance to get into the festive spirit.

Although the charity is student led, and in the past was for students only, anyone is now able to volunteer with SVC. Indeed, they are keen to get as many people involved as possible.

Writing about the Giving Week on their Facebook page, SVC claimed “Whether you want to spend some time socialising with isolated elderly people, preparing food for the homeless or supporting adults with disabilities, we have an opportunity for you.”

And the Winter Giving Week is not the only charity event that has been organised by SVC over the festive period. Indeed they have already run a campaign to collect donations of “unwanted gifts, toiletry sets, boxes of biscuits, chocolates and winter woollies” to redistribute to the city’s homeless population.