Home Page > About Us > Our People > Our Volunteers

Arc is very grateful to our wonderful volunteers who give up their time to support our clients and the services we offer.

We couldn’t function without their skills, enthusiasm and dedication! Volunteering can be fun as well as fulfilling and can make a great difference in your community.

Our volunteers help in many different ways from running activities and courses for our in-house academy or assisting with donation collections, fundraising and events!

Here are a few examples of our current volunteers and what they get up to…

" I volunteer for Arc by teaching simple breadmaking without all the mystique and mystery that prevents people from making their own bread.

I volunteer my time and efforts for several reasons - I feel I’m very fortunate and want to help those less so. I figure that anyone can end up homeless - and they just need a leg up.

I chose to pass on my skills to the homeless because here’s a group that can benefit immediately from my passion. Arc is all about getting people back on their feet, and I can assist by passing on some simple techniques that will help them on a limited budget. Plus, I feel everyone should be able to make their own bread!

I enjoy volunteering for Arc because no two sessions are the same. There is great support and training - and I’ve met some wonderful people in my four years working with Arc (some of them staff!)

My time at Arc has benefited me enormously. I’ve learned a lot - about teaching simple cookery, but also about people. And I’ve learned never to judge by appearances."

Having retired a few years ago, Annie and Paul felt that providing help for a good cause through volunteering would be a good idea.

One day Annie stopped in Taunton to talk to a homeless man and asked him what life was like for him and how had he reached this point. Annie admits that normally she would have walked past and not given a second thought. However, after ½ hour talking to David she realised that this could happen to any one of us. Something goes wrong in your life and for some reason there is a downward spiral from which you can’t escape without help. She left David knowing that she wanted to help in some way.

At about the same time, Paul noticed an article in the Gazette by Taunton Association for the Homeless asking for volunteers.

One phone call later and Paul and Annie were doing two weekly food pickups for our kitchen from Morrisons, which has now increased to three. Annie laughs that sometimes you just never know what you might end up collecting from Morrisons. Once it was 3 whole boxes of bananas. Annie didn’t want them going to waste so offered to bake banana loaves. Which she did!

If you're interested in volunteering, please get in touch with our volunteer co-ordinator, Emma Dunn by emailing her: [email protected] or call us on 01823 271326

We can help

Whether you're sleeping on the streets, sofa surfing or at risk of becoming homeless, we can help. No matter your background or what led to your homelessness, we can help you to find suitable accommodation and support within our services.

Support Us

We could not do it without the kind support from our community, helping us to provide the services our clients need. Thank you to everyone who is there for us and our clients.

Accommodation

Our accommodation offerings are based on the different support needs of our clients, to ensure we can provide a personalised approach for each individual.

Arc Academy

Many of our volunteers help with our in-house college, providing activities and courses for our clients to help them build on skills, self confidence and gain qualifications.