Count Me In

Perhaps you were one of the 6 million people who took up hundreds of thousands of volunteering roles on the extra May bank holiday as the coronation festivities concluded with the ‘Big Help Out’. This huge volunteering drive was billed as a lasting legacy of the crowning of King Charles III and it did an amazing job in showing the positive impact volunteering has on communities across the UK.

If you participated on the day or wish to do so now, a Big Help Out app has been developed to enable you to search more effectively for volunteering opportunities, ranging from helping elderly people to supporting animal welfare to working with environmental charities.

At Carbon Copy, we wish to highlight the exciting volunteering opportunities that are broadly addressing the climate and biodiversity crises locally across a wide range of community-led projects. Crucially, from a volunteering perspective, the activities taking place may increase resilience to climate impacts or contribute to nature recovery, without this necessarily being the primary motivation. For example, volunteering to help run a local community fridge or to set up a ‘plastic free community’ programme or to maintain a community garden.

When we say ‘community-led’ projects, we are referring to those initiatives which may draw on support from the voluntary, private and public sectors but, crucially, are created or kept going thanks to people like yourself who live locally and band together. The groups involved can range from a bunch of volunteers to more ambitious social enterprises, and invariably they would all benefit from more people power.

If you are one of the hundreds of people who have shared their community-led projects on Carbon Copy, and are looking for more volunteer help, please add your project to the Big Help Out app so that more people will discover the great work you are doing.

If you are someone who was inspired by the bank holiday push behind volunteering, please look out for opportunities to help grassroots organisations locally that have a positive, wider impact on the environment, as well as those groups that are deliberately addressing the ‘climate crisis’.

As with other frontline volunteer services – from the Royal National Lifeboat Institute that help keep us safe at sea to Mountain Rescue that help keep us safe on land – without people volunteering in our communities we will not have the people in place to help keep us safe from the impact of our changing climate.

If you live in Edinburgh or Cardiff, please come along next month to one of Carbon Copy’s “Community & Climate Connect” events, where lots of different, local organisations will gather to showcase their work and offer interesting opportunities for those who may wish  to volunteer or get involved. Please see our Events page for more information about each of the free events!

These “Community & Climate Connect” events are highlights in a much bigger celebration of climate action and nature across Great Britain, throughout June and early July, organised by The World Relay. From the top of Ben Nevis to Big Ben, thousands of people will be participating in different stages of a 2600km relay across Scotland, Wales and England – all in support of the campaign. Together with other partners and The World Relay, we are calling on everyone to work collectively and contribute in whatever way they can, to protect our world now and for future generations.

If participating in this bigger event sounds like fun, please don’t delay and see Running Out of Time for more exciting details and ways to join in!