Meet Bob & Les - Our Volunteers, this Hospice Care Week

Meet Bob and Les, dedicated Hospice Shop volunteers who are making a real difference in our community.

This #HospiceCareWeek is all about retail and we couldn’t celebrate it without shining a light on the incredible work of our retail volunteers.

Their time and energy are essential ingredients in raising vital funds for hospice care and helping to keep our doors open.

Les has been volunteering for over 7 years now and comes in everyday to help. In another life, he would have loved to own a book shop himself but thinks volunteering at Hospice is the next best thing!

Bob has been volunteering for over 5 years and comes in 1 or 2 mornings a week, and pops in more when Les is on holiday.

A typical day of volunteering for them both is super busy! They manage the whole process of books and media for Hospice Shops. This begins right at the start when donations are dropped off to the Hospice Superstore. They will sift through the bags and determine what can and can’t be sold in the shops. Of the ones that can be sold, they will then organise them into genre, authors etc, price them up, before restocking the shelves at the Superstore and decided what should go to our other Shops. The stock also never gets stale or boring as the guys will consistently refresh it all monthly and remove items that haven’t sold or have had very little interest.

Both Bob and Les volunteer for us to give something back to the charity. They want to support Hospice and fully believe in the cause of what Hospice does and tries to achieve. Les also likes to try and stay active since he retired, therefore this is a great way to do it!

Getting to know the customers that come into the Superstore on a regular basis is something they both enjoy. Some people will come in daily, weekly to have a browse of the book section and always end up taking something home with them. They even take the time to get to know some of them so well that if they like a specific author, the guys will keep an eye out for books by that author and let the person know to pop in.

Just to show how vital Bob and Les are to our Hospice Shops, this year our books and media have raised an incredible £54,237 to date! A phenomenal amount which really couldn’t be possible without the support and hard work of our Hospice Shop volunteers. Thank you! Thank you Bob and Les, and to all our amazing volunteers, you really are #HospiceShopHeroes!