Welcome to our round up of seasonal volunteering roles for December and January, including Christmas, New Year’s and the time in between. (As you can see, we are adding to this list daily, so check back for updates!)
Events
Castlehaven Community Association Winter Fest: Friday 6th December, 4-7pm
There are a number of opportunities to be involved on the day or beforehand. Check out all of the details on the CCA Instagram account or email info@castlehaven.org.uk
Drivers are needed for Jacksons Lane (Highgate) on Christmas Day
2024 marks the 50th Christmas Day lunch at Jacksons Lane. We need an army of volunteers to cook the meals, drive around guests, wrap gifts and spread joy on the day. Sign up and / or find out more info on what’s needed on the Jacksons Lane website.
St John’s Open Christmas Lunch 2024
Many volunteers are needed to host this annual Christmas meal at St John’s Catholic Church in Duncan Terrace (Near to Islington, Angel). Volunteers are needed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for setting up and preparation on 24.12 and for the kitchen and hosting teams on 25.12. Full details are on St John the Evangelist’s website.
Homelessness
Crisis at Christmas
Crisis has a range of roles and shift times across December and January to suit you. You could be welcoming guests, serving hot meals, or running activities and services in our hotels and day centres. Or you could work behind the scenes in our Canning Town Warehouse, helping to get vital supplies out to our services. They also need specialist health and wellbeing volunteers such as physios, opticians, hairdressers and more to support their guests. Whatever your role, you’ll be making a huge difference. Check out all of the details on the Crisis website.
C4WS Winter Shelter
The winter shelter runs from the start of November to the end of March. They say:
‘Each shift relies on volunteers to help with set-up, food preparation, making and stripping beds, and providing hospitality to our guests.
We have a number of roles available in our shelters for volunteers who have not previously been associated with our project, they are known as Floating Volunteers.
If you are interested in volunteering at our shelter, please write to our Shelter Coordinator nikki@c4wshomelessproject.org to tell her a little about yourself, why you would like to volunteer, and list two references for her to contact. Once she’s heard back, you will be sent the link to our Volunteer Training Video, and asked to complete our Volunteer Agreement and read through our Policies & Procedures.’
Check out more info about C4WS on their website.
Everything else at Christmas
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army has a range of opportunities available, including Christmas present packing and delivery. However, what is on offer will vary on a local level – and so depends on each local church. You can also discover what’s on offer by visiting a shop and speaking to the staff or volunteers.
And aside from Christmas Day itself, the Salvation Army has a range of volunteering activities on offer throughout the festive period, with their charity shops particularly busy as Christmas approaches.
Other voluntary roles include cooks and caterers, befrienders and debt advisers…
‘You can also volunteer at our food banks, lunch clubs, community cafés or playgroups, or volunteer to support The Salvation Army’s anti-trafficking and modern slavery work, for example as a chaperone, driver or mentor. To find out more email ATMSVolunteering@salvationarmy.org.uk or visit the Salvation Army website.’
Other Christmas volunteering round ups
The Big Issue has produced a round up of volunteering in London at Christmas. You can check that our on the Big Issue website.
London’s Lifelines has published a list of volunteering roles across London for Winter 2024.
And Simply Volunteer London has a number of other roles across London … It’s quick and easy to use and all you need to do is enter the keyword, ‘Christmas’ in the search box on the Simply Volunteer London website.
