A Day in the Life of our Cafe Volunteers

We’re very lucky to be supported by an amazing team of volunteers in our Northgate Tea Room, ensuring visitors, staff and other volunteers have a clean and welcoming space to enjoy drinks, meals and treats.

As part of Volunteers Week, we caught up with a team of the café volunteers to find out what a day of volunteering in the café entails, and why they chose to support Teesside Hospice:

“When we come in we need to get the cutlery out, put the condiments on the table, fill the milk jugs, put the machines on and start the till, then we’re ready.

It’s always quite busy in here, Pam goes on the till and we (Julia and Kath) do the drinks. We’re like meet and greeters! It’s lovely.

The scones always sell quickly – they’re a hit with everyone!

At the end of the day we cash up the till and clear away, making sure everything’s clean and tidy ready for tomorrow. There’s often still customers in when we leave, but we just say to them that they don't have to hurry.

We love volunteering because you meet a lot of people - lots of lovely people - and we’ve ended up like sisters since we’ve met.

We get to meet other volunteers as well when they come in for lunch, so we get to know everyone.”

Kath shared with us that she became a volunteer for something to do following redundancy: “I’d been made redundant from one place then another and I thought I’ll do some volunteering, something worthwhile.

Pam added that she also wanted to make a difference: “I really wanted to do something worthwhile.”

While Julia shared her personal connection with the hospice: “I think when a member of your family has been involved with the hospice as well, it’s a way of returning for all of the good work that they’ve done for you. I’ve lost two brother in laws, both were in here and the team were absolutely amazing, I can’t fault anything at all. And they still now contact my sister and ask how she’s doing, so it’s just amazing.

And we are all friends, even the staff, the doctors, the nurses they come in and they’re all amazing, we’re all treated the same and that is one key point.”

Interested in becoming a volunteer and making a difference with the team? Visit our Volunteering page to find out more.