Mission wants volunteers

Press, 21 May 1988, Page 9

Mission wants volunteers

Volunteers are urgently needed to help at the Christchurch City Mission. The acting City Missioner, the Rev. lan Reynolds, said the mission needed 26 volunteers to keep up daily rosters at the night shelter, tele-phone-answering service and clothing stores. Up to 20 people were needed at the night shelter, among these cooks

and dishwashers. Six older people also were needed to staff the mission’s clothing stores in Addington, Selwyn Street, and Hereford Street. The life of a volunteer was “not glamorous” but hard work. This was probably why some people had left, said Mr Reynolds. He did not think the violence and vandalism

that had closed the night shelter last year had affected volunteers. Some volunteers had been regular helpers for many years, but others had family commitments that prevented their working regularly at the mission, said Mr Reynolds. In the past, some of the cooking had been done by volunteers who had been ship’s cooks.

Most of the helpers were church people, but that was not a requirement, said Mr Reynolds. Volunteers needed, rather, to be “non-judg-mental,” agile “in mind and body” and not afraid of hard work. Helpers were also needed for telephone answering during the week from 5 p.m. to 9 or 10 p.m., and in shifts at the week-ends.