Volunteers’ Week is here and we’re taking a moment to celebrate the incredible people who give their time to support YMCA Fairthorne Group.
We’ve already shared Arthur’s journey to volunteering, and next up is Sam.
Sam is currently in the middle of a career transition from Education into the Charity Sector, and chose the YMCA because she wanted to be where the real impact happens. She has always loved helping people learn, but realised she wanted to support the ‘whole person’, not just their education, but their housing, mental health, and future stability. Sam has found the role to be the perfect bridge; it lets her use her Project Management skills to build something practical that helps our residents truly move on and thrive.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Sam loves the problem-solving aspect of the project. Getting out to our sites in Basingstoke and Southampton to talk with the teams has been a total highlight for her; it turned our data into real faces and stories.
Seeing that ‘gap’ in staff capacity was a lightbulb moment for me because I knew exactly how to use my education and project management background to help fix it. I’m genuinely enjoying the challenge of bringing that core curriculum to a charity setting. But most of all, I love knowing that the curriculum I’m building will give a resident the quiet confidence they need when they finally walk through their own front door and start their next chapter.
