Volunteers Week 2019

Emily Cooper

03/06/19

It's Volunteers Week! To mark the occasion, we're going to spend this week giving you a whistle-stop tour through volunteering with the Rivers Trust movement—ending with a celebration of our fantastic volunteers. Volunteers Week 2019 So, without further ado, let's get started with by addressing two key questions: what is volunteers week, and why are volunteers so important? What is Volunteers Week? The Volunteers Week campaign takes place annually from the 1st to the 7th of June. Across the country, voluntary groups and charities are banding together in order to acknowledge and celebrate the contribution volunteers make to our organisations. At its core, this week is a way for us and other organisations to say a massive THANK YOU to our volunteers. We want to recognise the contribution they make to charitable causes across the country—and hopefully encourage other people to join in, too. Why are Volunteers so Important? Without volunteers, we wouldn't be able to carry out our work. Rivers would suffocate under the burden of plastic pollution; invasive species would run rampant, dominating our ecosystems; and our native animals would vanish, fleeing pollution in their homes. With the help of our volunteers, we are able to carry out extensive work, protecting and improving rivers across the country. We are eternally grateful for their contribution, and we believe it's important to acknowledge the role they play in our organisation. To demonstrate just how valuable volunteers are, let's look at some numbers...
  • The estimated annual value of volunteers in the UK £22.6 billion! That's equivalent to about 1.2% of GDP!
  • 20.1 million people in the UK volunteered during 2017/18
  • Around 166,000 voluntary organisations exist in the UK (figures from 2015/16), most of which rely on the contribution of volunteers in order to operate
What's Going on this Volunteers Week? This week, we want to take a closer look at each element of volunteering with The Rivers Trust. Take a look below for a taster of what the week will include!
  1. Tuesday: Corporate Volunteers
  2. Wednesday: Youth Volunteers
  3. Thursday: Volunteering & Wellbeing
  4. Friday: Celebrating Our Volunteers
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