Volunteer Ireland Storybook

During the COVID-19 crisis volunteers were central to how communities stepped up to the mark. 

Volunteer Ireland and the Department of Rural and Community Development have launched a ‘Storybook’ telling the tale of COVID19 through Volunteer Centres and volunteer activities.

The document produced serves as an insight into the spirit of volunteering and its beneficial impact in our communities.

Click here to view the Volunteer Ireland Storybook.

Jack’s Story

I am a member of a local scouting organisation, St. Patricks 1st 2nd 5th Louth Scout Group. I am part of a section called DVS, Dundalk Venture Section, a section with members aged between 15-18. During the ongoing pandemic, we came to terms with the fact that our regular meetings, which occur every Wednesday evening, could not be conducted.

Despite this we looked for an opportunity to both keep active, engage with our local and national community and to just stay connected with the older generation; locals who have no contact with neighbours, relatives or friends. We established the idea of writing, painting and drawing on postcards, which were distributed throughout the country by An Post and cost nothing to post. We created a groupchat, messaged each other about different ideas we had about sending the postcards and started to execute our plan.

One of the local Post Office clerks on Bridge Street, Dundalk, Jack Cumiskey was able to supply us with postcards. Each of us had different roles. My role was to enquire and make a list of names in Residential Nursing Homes, a prime contributor of names being Dealgan Nursing Home. My colleagues wrote the majority of the cards however I was delighted to have the opportunity to write some and wrote to a member of my community who lives on the far side of Dundalk. Another nursing home resident, being a proud citizen of Cork, asked for me to draw her a picture of all her interests. While there is less demand for our postcard writing at the moment we all really enjoyed giving that small, kind gesture back to the community.

Olive's story

Olive runs a free adult music group called Scaleforce. Before COVID they used to regularly give their time playing for older people in nursing homes, they also played at charity events. When COVID-19 hit Olive knew how important the social connection was for their members so adapted the support being provided to fit the new environment:

“I run a free adult music group called Scale Force, It is aimed at adults that picked up an instrument or played as a child and are now playing again. I teach a set of tunes then we all get together on a Wednesday night for a session. Before COVID we met in Byrne’s Bar in Dundalk but now I run the sessions online. Scaleforce has helped us all achieve the music goals we never thought we would. We even got the chance to play on the Gig Rig at the 2019 All Ireland Fleadh in Drogheda!

 When the Covid-19 restrictions started I knew our members were going to really feel at a loss. Unfortunately one of our members had died tragically only the week before and I knew that their family and our other members would really feel the loss of the music. So a few weeks later I live streamed a music session at our usual time and members really enjoyed it with about 20 signing in. After receiving so many lovely texts and emails, I decided to keep our weekly session going. With the help of two other group members we record each session and put it up on Facebook. We had help from Gráinne Carroll of Louth PPN who got us set up on Zoom. This made our session even better!

 We held a free music session every week and have only missed 2 nights since March. I have continued to teach them tunes by e-mailing the sheet music and recordings and then playing them slow on the weekly Wednesday session. Mary, from Canada has said it was like a lifeline home as she was always home for a few weeks in the summer to visit her family and would join us. She should have been home for her brothers 60th birthday in July but sadly she was not allowed to leave Canada and he lost his live to Covid-19 in April. The session gave us a chance of being there for her.

Since lockdown we have even been able to do a recording which was used in aid of the charity SOSAD. I get so much from helping all our members and knowing that I can help them stay connected to one another.