Sudbury Women’s Centre recognizing its volunteers

The Sudbury Women’s Centre is highlighting the importance of its volunteers during this year's National Volunteer Week, a time to honour volunteers who play an important role at non-profit organizations.

The Sudbury Women’s Centre currently has four volunteers. One of those is Stephanie Dale, who recently started volunteering her time at the centre.

Dale volunteers in My Sister’s Closet at the centre. She spends her time going through clothing donations and organizing each rack.

She said volunteering was something she decided to do after making some life changes.

"My previous lifestyle had me in a position where I had to utilize centres very similar to this one and I feel like giving back is very important," Dale said.

"It’s really amazing. There’s honestly no price I could put on it. I think that for myself, it’s empowering, it’s motivating and it really does give me a sense of worth and value -- not only to myself but other people, too."

The Sudbury Women’s Centre said having volunteers is essential.

"Not only does it help us at the centre to be able to work on various programs or things we need done, but it also helps our clients," said Giulia Carpenter, executive director of Sudbury Women's Centre.

"It helps our clients grow and it gives us the opportunity to assist our clients in a different capacity. A lot of our volunteers also do come to us who were past clients. So they’re working full circle, they are now thriving and they want to be able to give back."

During the pandemic, the centre lost 17 volunteers and soon it will be looking at bringing in more individuals.

"So, we did decrease quite a bit and we are looking for more volunteers to come in and assist in the closet in the months of September," said Carpenter.

"Once we have our summer staff that are going to be completed, that’ll be our main time we will be looking for people."

Carpenter said in September, the centre would be looking for up to eight volunteers.

As for Dale, she said her plan is to continue volunteering and giving back to the community.