Volunteering is under the spotlight in West Lindsey to celebrate Volunteers Week 2021

Captain Wendy Brown said: “The Salvation Army has been in Gainsborough for 135-years this year, which we will be celebrating in October, and we have been out working in the community for that long.

"How we reach out has changed differently over the years, now we have our food bank, which has been a massive thing during the pandemic, and has been the only thing running throughout the entire pandemic.

“We also do school work, funerals and weddings just like any other church, and we also run community programmes. Further to that, we have a charity shop, which we have up on Queens Way, in Gainsborough, which provides a service to those within the community.

“Currently, as some of our volunteers haven’t returned yet from the pandemic, we have 14 volunteers helping us at the charity shop, two volunteers at the foodbank, and one volunteer that does some cooked meals for school children.

"We did have a couple of volunteer drivers but they’ve returned to their normal work now. We have around 20 volunteers that we can call on at the moment.

“Volunteering is all about the feel-good factor. It’s about giving something back to the community, people like to be useful, they like to say they have done something good, so it’s really about a feel-good factor and giving back.

“I think actually volunteering brings the community together. This pandemic I think has really brought that out, a lot of people have volunteered that have never really volunteered before. It’s brought communities together.

"People have told their friends and family what they are doing and it’s inspired them to do something.

“I think it’s essential we have volunteers because a lot of charities like us can’t run without them.”

For more information on how you can be a volunteer at the Salvation Army you can call up the team on 01427 616353.