Welcome to our round up of seasonal volunteering roles for December and January, including Christmas, New Year’s and the time in between. We are adding to this list daily, so check back for updates!
Events
Castlehaven Community Association Winter Fest: Friday 5th 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
2025 marks the 51st Christmas Day lunch at Jacksons Lane. They are now looking for 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.
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 sian@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.
The Whitechapel Mission
The Whitechapel Mission is open every day of the year and not just for Christmas. They open their doors at 6am every day, with access to free food, free showers, free medical assistance and access to advice workers who are here to assist with housing and much more.
They say:
‘We will be open this Christmas, and throughout the winter, to ensure that everybody in need of hot food, showers, clothing, advice and safety will have somewhere to go.
With your help, we have seen the incredible things that can happen when people come together to help one another. Thank you for being a part of service provision this year. We couldn’t do what we do without you. Please help us make Christmas a little special for those people sleeping on our streets.’
You can have a look at all of the opportunities available, check out the volunteering diary and make a booking on the WM 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.’
Little Village
Little Village is a baby bank powerhouse which was founded in Camden in 2016. Since then they have helped more than 32,000 children to ‘have the essentials they need to thrive’. They are looking for people to help out sorting donations in their Wandsworth warehouse for a number of one-off sessions in the run up to Christmas. All of the details are on the Little Village website.
Marie Curie
A brief introduction to Marie Curie: ‘Marie Curie provides a better end of life for more people, whatever the illness. We’re here for anyone living with any illness they’re likely to die from, and those close to them. We provide free palliative and end of life care, information and support. We campaign for more people to have a better end of life and fund palliative care research.’
Other Christmas volunteering round ups
London’s Lifelines has published a list of volunteering roles across London for Winter 2025.
The Londonist has also gathered a number of roles, which you can check out on their website.
LSE has gathered a list of volunteering roles which you can check out on their website.
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.
