Why volunteering for Guild Care can make a difference to the Worthing community

Guild Care shop volunteers James Faulkner and Chris Constable

It has been more than 40 years since we opened our first charity shop in Worthing. We are proud to say we have opened a further nine stores in the town in that time, as well as our charity superstore, The Greenhouse.

Our charity shops sell a wide variety of items, including secondhand furniture, vintage clothes, bric-a-brac, books and children's toys. Every penny of the money made in these stores goes back into the vital care and support services that we provide to the local community.

Each year more than 3,000 local people and their families benefit from these services, which includes the running of three residential care homes – Caer Gwent, Linfield House and Haviland House. Guild Care services aim to reduce social isolation, loneliness and social stigma around learning disabilities, older people and dementia.

Last week, Worthing Borough Council gave us the green light to expand our furniture and warehouse charity superstore, The Greenhouse. This will help us to raise more funds to support even more people locally.

Adam Rider, director of retail at Guild Care

Its expansion will make it the largest charity shop in Sussex – and one of the largest in the UK. This will be filled with everything from furniture and clothes to electrical goods and household equipment for customers to browse. For those wanting to drop off their donations, there’s plenty of parking around the premises, which will make it easily accessible.

Now, more than ever, we need your help to keep Guild Care services thriving! If you’ve got a couple of hours to spare and are keen to meet new people, then we invite you to join our team of volunteers, either in one of our town centre stores or our new expanded superstore.

The roles in our stores are varied and include serving customers, sorting donations and merchandising the donations into interesting and attractive displays. If you’d rather get behind the wheel, we’re also on the lookout for volunteer minibus drivers. Our team is a friendly bunch and the hours you volunteer with us can be flexible based on your availability.

If you would like to give back to your community, work as a team and enjoy discovering weird and wonderful things in bags, then this could well be the right opportunity for you!

We hear some fantastic feedback from our team of volunteers. Martin, who works in one of our shops, told us: “I’d really recommend volunteering with Guild Care to anyone. It’s a great atmosphere here, we all have a laugh and I just love interacting and chatting with the local customers, it’s a nice place to be.”

If you’d like to find out more about volunteering in a Guild Care store, please visit our website at www.guildcare.org/Pages/Category/volunteer-roles-retail or call us on 01903 327327.

There’s also information on the website about donating goods to our charity shops and expanded superstore: www.guildcare.org/donate-items