Although it is now January and 2025, I don’t want to forget December. On 5th December it was International Volunteers Day, set aside as such by the UN General Assembly in 1985.
I didn’t know that. But I did know that on the same day in December, East Shallowford held a pre-Christmas gathering to say thank you to our volunteers. It was a representative gathering with some past volunteers, some present volunteers, and some future volunteers.
Volunteering has always been at the heart of Shallowford, from the first year of the project, when a minibus and a removal van rolled in from London, full of wide-eyed young people about to pioneer a new adventure in the mid-seventies to the present cohort of helpers, all DBS’d, GDPR’d, and probably satnav’d as well.
I am not sure who said this, but it resonates: ‘Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in.’
Our volunteers at Shallowford help us in so many ways, repairing our stone walls, helping with animal care, helping in the garden and a myriad of other ways, large and small. Some come with just a pair of hands and a willing heart. Some come with particular expertise, and it is surprising how skills can match a need. Some come with gifts of getting alongside young people or with a talent to share, and that of course is the heart of the matter at East Shallowford, giving young people the opportunity of a residential farm experience, of widening their horizons and their learning panorama.
Here is another quotation, from a possibly unlikely source, but it was Audrey Hepburn who said, ‘As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands — one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.’
We hope that 2025 the volunteering life of East Shallowford will grow to another level, as we seek to support volunteering more methodically and with added training and hopefully travel support, and get going something we have longed thought about – a Friends of Shallowford project.
We have barely got over Christmas, so a quotation from Jesus won’t go amiss, who said that ‘freely you have received, freely give.’
Volunteering is a gift for both the one who gives as well as the one who receives.
Happy volunteering 2025.
Robert Musgrave MBE, East Shallowford Farm