ELBA’s Volunteer of the Month for December is Simon Harding from Westfield Stratford City. Simon was nominated for his great work using connections and liaising with colleagues to support ELBA’s Toy Appeal.

ELBA’s Toy Appeal seeks donations of toys for children across east London that might otherwise not have a gift for themselves at Christmas. Gifts asked for are split into age categories and each year the age groups of 11-16 years old and 0-3 years old are the groups with less toys donated. This year to plan for that the ELBA team arranged a toy dash, think supermarket sweep but for toys in Westfield Stratford City. The team had approached Simon to ask for a room to brief the volunteers away from the shop floor. Not only did Simon arrange for a briefing room but liaised with colleagues and stores across the centre ahead of the ELBA volunteers’ arrival. See the article here for more details. Simon truly went above and beyond in supporting the ELBA Toy Appeal – a fantastic volunteer, thank you Simon.

We caught up with Simon to find out about his volunteering experience:

1) Why did you volunteer? 

I was delighted to be associated with so many willing and able volunteers who gave of their time and energy to make this one of the most collaborative efforts I have had the pleasure to have been involved with. Everyone involved was inspirational which is why we do this sort of thing.

2)What did you gain from your volunteering experience?     

I was able to give some back, which is a great thing, plus I had so much fun doing it, which is is even better.

3) Would you recommend volunteering to a colleague and if so then why?    

You bet I’d do it again and recommend others to do it too!

A huge thank you to Simon for a fantastic piece of volunteering.