An initiative to break down barriers to volunteering in Cumbria’s cultural sector has been hailed as a resounding success and is set to leave a lasting legacy.
Helping Hands has so far placed 426 volunteers with more than 30 arts, heritage and culture organisations from theatres to museums, art galleries and stately homes. A third had never volunteered before.
The two-year project is led by Cumbria Museum Consortium and funded by Arts Council England through the Government’s Volunteering Futures Fund.
It ends in April. To mark its achievements – and examine the lessons learned – a celebratory event, Part of the Family, was held at Sunbeams Music Centre, near Penrith, attended by 80 people including volunteers and representatives from funders, cultural and partner organisations.
Janet Cresswell, Helping Hands project manager, said the project’s greatest legacy was its people, the volunteers themselves.
She added: “Volunteering is a fabulous thing for mental health and for reducing isolation and loneliness. Helping Hands has raised the profile of volunteering in arts, culture and heritage.”
For some volunteers, the experience has been life changing.
Glenn Rider, 61, of Carlisle, suffered from anxiety and found it difficult to interact with people he didn’t know. Helping Hands found him a volunteer role with English Heritage at Carlisle Castle.
He said: “My job is to show people the dungeons, to tell them the awful story of what happened there, yet make them laugh on the way out.
“It’s something I’d never thought I’d be able to do, to talk to people like this. Now I’ll talk to anyone. I have the self-confidence to do it.”
For others, volunteering has been a way into paid work.
Rebecca Moss who began volunteering with Prism Arts, in Carlisle, is now a member of staff there.
She said: “Throughout my education, I wasn’t able to get a lot of hands-on work experience. Volunteering is the best way of doing that. It has helped build my confidence and all the skills I need to get a job in the arts.”
Shane Byrne, a manager with the Department of Work and Pensions, told the event: “Many of our customers aren’t ready to do work. Volunteering gets that journey started. It’s a kind of magic.”
Helping Hands has also delivered 345 training activities to help heritage and cultural organisations embrace a wider range of volunteers. Topics include anti-racism, disability equality, autism and deaf awareness.
Kate Parry, head of partnership at Cumbria Museum Consortium, said many cultural organisations relied on retired professionals as volunteers.
The project had succeeded in placing more young people, the neurodiverse, minorities and those with disabilities and chronic health conditions. More than half came from deprived wards and some from outside Cumbria.
She said: “It has prompted organisations to think about how they recruit and encouraged them to think about what changes they need to make so the profile of their volunteers more effectively represents their audience.
