Dymphna in her time with us, decorated the reception, toilets, counselling rooms and kitchen, managed to clear the sheds so staff could identify the contents and also did regular weeding and litter picking to keep the surroundings safe and tidy.

By volunteering to the work at weekends and after hours, she saved a whole lot of inconvenience to staff and service users and saved the organisation a huge amount of money and time.

Fortunately she took a great deal of pride in the work she did and the results speak for themselves - there was a queue to get in the kitchen when she had finished and staff still fight over the use of the once neglected dumping space that was room 9.

Before	After
Before	After

Doing work of this kind was far removed from Dymphna's day job but doing physical work  was a welcome change from academic study and gave her something else to focus on for a time. For some people, volunteering can provide an alternative source of stimuli, a change from the day to day norm and a chance to try and to do different.