Community
23 May, 2025
Put your hand up for new friendships
AS volunteers across Australia are celebrated during National Volunteer Week this week, opportunity shops – or op shops, as they are commonly known – are encouraging the community to put their hands up to volunteer at their local stores.
Residents in Camperdown have the option to volunteer with St Vincent de Paul (Vinnies), Lifeline or Sunnyside Shop.
Among the volunteers working hard to keep the stores going are Vinnies volunteers Laney Burkett and Maureen Larkins.
Ms Burkett said she started working at Vinnies to work alongside her relative Heather Vagg and enjoys the friendship and the company working at the store brings.
“Once you’re left on your own, I think it’s important that you get out and mix and help people,” she said.
“You’ve got to be able to be friendly and help people.”
Mrs Larkins, who has been volunteering at Vinnies for around 35 years, said she started out due to a strong curiosity after someone approached her.
“I didn’t know much about it 35 years ago, and I’ve been here since,” she said.
“I really love working here.
“It’s a great place to work because you know all the money we make in here is for the poor, and that’s the idea behind it all – helping somebody else who is less fortunate.
“Working here is good fun.
“We do a lot of work out the back, and we love to see people coming in and enjoying what we’ve got on the shelves.”
In Sunnyside Shop, volunteer Jeanette Duncanson spends time behind the scenes – sorting out the donations received from the community.
She said she enjoys the variety of things to do within the shop, as well as the friendships she had made along the way.
“I retired from my work at the accountants in Cobden, and some friends who have worked here for quite some time said ‘come and join us’. So, I did,” Mrs Duncanson said.
“It’s a great opportunity to get out and be part of the community and meet some different people – either people travelling through or locals.
“All money raised stays in town and goes to Sunnyside House.”
As part of Volunteer Week celebrations, Lifeline held a special morning tea last Friday to thank its volunteers for their work over the year.
At this morning tea, volunteer Rose Hine was recognised for her 15 years of volunteering at Camperdown’s Lifeline store.
She said her favourite part of working at Lifeline are the “great people” she works with.
“You meet some interesting people who come through the shop,” Ms Hine said.
“You get to know the regulars – by faces, not necessarily by name – and then we’ve got people passing through, and you have a bit of a chat with them.
“My job advisor suggested I volunteer to give me something to do and get my skills up, which would help for me to get a job, and I stayed.
“I have learned a lot of things I didn’t know.”
Lifeline Victoria retail operations manager Peter Kalogeropoulos, who attended the Lifeline morning tea, said volunteers were crucial to the work Lifeline do – as well as the work of other op shops.
“For Lifeline, volunteers are the lifeblood of what we do,” he said.
“Without volunteers, we wouldn’t be able to open our shops to raise the money we need to answer the calls that we get every day.
“Without volunteers, we just couldn’t operate.”
Mrs Larkins encouraged anyone who might be considering volunteering to “give it a go”.
“It doesn’t matter if they can only give a few hours a week, a day a week, or two days a week – everyone’s welcome,” she said.
Read More: Camperdown