Volunteer your time or skills
Did you know scientific studies have found that doing something to help others is good for your mental and physical health, self esteem and can even help you live longer?! Volunteering is also a great way to build new skills and gain work experience. As if that wasn’t enough, volunteering at MammaKind means you will make a huge difference to families living in poverty in south-east London.
MammaKind runs thanks to our incredible team of volunteers but always has need of more helpers. There are lots of different ways you can get involved – scroll down to see the current opportunities. To join our wonderful community of volunteers, just fill in the volunteer form at the bottom of this page. We can’t wait to meet you!
Warehouse volunteer
In our Lewisham warehouse we run volunteer sessions from Monday to Thursday, 10am to 2pm. We also have occasional Saturday volunteering sessions.
Jobs include:
- sorting clothes into age and gender
- sorting and cleaning shoes and toys
- creating bundles of clothing for dispatch
- shelf stacking
- safety checking equipment
- creating toiletries bundles for dispatch
- pram fixing
- and more!
Delivery driver
We need drivers to deliver packages to families in need. MammaKind will organise a DBS check and safeguarding training, as well as cover the cost of your fuel. You’ll need your own vehicle and a full, clean driving licence.
Corporate team volunteering – warehouse support
If you’d like your workplace to take part in a team-building activity to increase camaraderie and morale, as well as benefit the local community, our corporate team volunteering programme could be the solution. With your support, we can reach even more local families going through a difficult time.
Teams of up to eight volunteers can work in our Lewisham warehouse to carry out the following tasks:
- sorting donations
- creating mini-bundles
- collating specific items to be sent to families that have been referred
- checking that toys and books are fit to be passed on
- putting together hygiene packs for babies and families in need
- carrying out safety checks on prams and equipment.
Corporate team volunteer days can be arranged on Thursdays during term-time weeks, and run from 10am to 3pm. MammaKind will provide an introductory training session as well as tea, coffee and biscuits. There will be a lunch break from 12.30 to 1.30pm that must be taken off site but it’s only a two-minute walk to Lewisham town centre. Car parking is available next door to the warehouse at approximately £12 a day.
“At the end of last year Mammakind ran a Christmas present drive and I roped in colleagues to help make up bundles of presents specific to each family. That is one of the things I love about MammaKind. They are given a list of families from their referral partner and so much care is taken to really consider what the seven-year-old boy will need, or if there is a comforter to give the six-month-old girl. It is so personal.” Katherine Andrea, Programme Manager Infectious Diseases, Wellcome Trust.
“Yesterday I spent the day with my team volunteering for MammaKindbabybank sorting baby bundles for mums and babies in Greenwich and Lewisham. It was good fun, lovely getting to know my team better, and great to be given the opportunity to give back to our local community…” Jessica McMahon, Senior Marketing Manager at Slalom UK (pictured below)
Corporate team volunteering – professional expertise
We welcome corporate volunteers who can lend us their professional skills. From PR and marketing to digital and back-end system improvements, your company could make a huge difference to how efficiently and effectively we run, meaning our resources can be redirected to benefiting the local families who need us most.
For example, a team from a large technology company recently reinvented the way in which we manage referrals by helping us integrate plugins to collect data more effectively. This has saved us valuable time managing the client referral process and in data capture necessary for feedback to funders and funding applications.
The team wanted to stay anonymous but their Internal Audit Lead commented: “I was really keen for myself and my team to volunteer with MammaKind because their work is so focussed on people in our local community of south London. I know the charity runs as lean as they can, so we were thrilled to be able to lend skills we have in relation to technology and process design to help make them more efficient.”
Word-of-mouth supporter
For those who’d like to volunteer but do a less physical role, we need people to help grow awareness of MammaKind and encourage people to give donations of new and pre-loved children’s clothes (up to age 7), toys and baby equipment. We’d love you to shout about us on social media, share our posts, and ask local schools to nominate us as their charity of the year. If you work in the local area, you could ask your company or other neighbouring businesses to support us too. Let us know who to contact at a local business via the volunteer form below and we can follow up with them too.
Fundraising volunteer
As a small charity, we don’t hold any official fundraising events at the moment but we’d be thrilled if someone could hold their own event, such as a coffee morning or clothes swap party, and raise money for MammaKind via the Crowdfunder, Big Give or Just Giving fundraising platforms. Could this be you?