Cornerstone Day Centre is a Caritas project in our friendly and welcoming base at Denmark Road in Manchester.
Our over arching aim is to ensure that people in Manchester have the support they need to prevent them from becoming homeless, that people who do become homeless are helped to secure safe accommodation with the support they need to make a new home and that no one has to sleep rough. In parallel with delivering direct housing outcomes, we aim to enable people to improve their wellbeing through providing services which meet immediate basic needs, promote mental health and wellbeing, enable people to access health and other support services and to take up education, training, volunteering opportunities and employment, as a means of sustaining positive housing outcomes.
We are open Monday to Friday from 10 am for a free breakfast, hot showers, and a range of activities, 1:1 support and advice, as well as access/signposting to other agencies.
Are you passionate about supporting people who are facing a wide range of social issues including homelessness, poverty, social isolation, drugs, and alcohol addiction?
Working alongside a committed team at Cornerstone, you could support us by doing practical tasks such as preparing and serving food, washing up, sorting donations and making up food parcels, cleaning, organising the showers and staffing our community shop.
We aim to enable people who visit the centre to do as many of the practical tasks involved in running the centre as possible with our general volunteers working alongside them to support and encourage them to do this.
We encourage anyone who can commit to volunteering a few hours at least two days a week on weekdays to apply for this position. The volunteering hours are; 9: 30 am to 1:00 pm, 9: 30 am to 3:00 pm, 11: 00 am to 3:00 pm, or 3: 00 pm to 5: 00 pm.
What you will be doing
Welcome people to the service by providing a friendly, warm and non-judgemental welcome to people coming into the centre. This includes both staffing our welcome desk and sitting and chatting with people who come in.
Provide advice and signposting to other services. This might include helping people to make appointments, sort out bills, fill out referral forms etc. Volunteers who are interested in doing advice work will be supported and trained to carry out this role.
Support and facilitate activities including our internet café, creative activities such as art, fun activities such as Bingo and quizzes and practical activities such as gardening. We need both volunteers with the skills and experience to facilitate sessions and volunteers to join in and support the sessions.
Mentor and work alongside our Community Volunteers doing practical tasks such as preparing and serving food, washing up, sorting donations and making up food parcels, cleaning, organising the showers and staffing our community shop. We aim to enable people who visit the centre to do as many of the practical tasks involved in running the Centre as possible with our general volunteers working alongside them to support and encourage them to do this.