Meet #TeamDevine: Debbie Tonkinson, our Volunteer Development Manager

Each week we want to tell you more about the extraordinary people that make up our Alexander Devine team.

This week it is the person who has a very special job indeed, looking after a very special group of people that are invaluable to us – our amazing volunteers!

This is Debbie Tonkinson and she is our Volunteer Development Manager. She told us how she has been reaching out to our 153 volunteers, keeping them connected with what we have been up to and how our volunteers are more determined than ever to find ways to support us:

We are very lucky to have over 150 volunteers that do amazing things for our charity. We really could not do without them and their time that they generously give us. Their dedication to us is even more evident during these uncertain times, when although they are not able to volunteer, they are determined to do all they can to continue to help us.

 

So many of them have been trying to find new ways to promote awareness of our children’s hospice service, support the Alexander Devine team and raise vital funds. They have been putting posters up around their communities, sharing our appeal amongst friends and family, sewing masks for our carers, hosting virtual fitness sessions, virtual busking and running online quiz nights! They really are an extraordinary group of people.

 

Although we are forced apart during the lockdown, in some ways we are all closer than ever. I hope I have been lifting their spirits as much as they have been lifting mine during this time of isolation through our regular phone calls, virtual coffees, video calls and even poetry sessions. I look forward to the time when we can all come back together.