Volunteering with Evelina London: A way to give back

Modern Joinery Editor George Lewis discusses recently becoming a volunteer for the day for Evelina London Children’s Charity, as part of its Charity of the Year initiative.

As part of Modern Joinery’s partnership with Evelina London Children’s Charity as our Charity of the Year, I was offered the opportunity to do my first bit of volunteering!

Volunteering is something that I hadn’t done too much of in the past, but it’s something that I have been keen to do, more so over the last year since becoming Editor of Modern Joinery and our sister publication, PiGs AKA People in Glazing Society.

The sheer amount of charitable work, donations and people giving up their time in these sectors was something I was aware of to some extent, but not quite to the amount I now see on a daily basis.

As you would’ve seen in a previous post when we announced Evelina London as our Charity of the Year in January (Modern Joinery chooses first-ever Charity of the Year – The Joinery Network), this charity is close to my heart due to my son, Jude, being born with a duplex kidney, a condition that required surgery in November 2024.

We have recently been told that the operation was a success, and his right kidney is looking and performing better than it ever has.

Knowing just some of the team personally at Evelina made me feel like I wanted to give something back, after being so caring and understanding what a difficult moment it was for our family last year, and what many other families go through.

I was stationed in Shepherd’s Hall, the main (and very busy I may add) restaurant at St Thomas’ Hospital, where Evelina London is based. I was kitted out fully with an apron, hair net, and beard net. Now looking the part, it was time to help quell the hunger of not only hospital staff, but patients and their families during a busy lunch shift.

Whilst there wasn’t much time to sit around and chat, I was able to understand more about some of the team’s careers in the restaurant and in catering within the hospitals, which was something I really enjoyed. Being a journalist, I’m always asking questions (some call it nosey!), but with some of the team having been there for over 20 years, I wanted to ask their reasons for staying so long.

There was a recurring theme in the answers given. “The NHS Trust has given me an opportunity to work my way up the career ladder”, “it has provided a stable career” and “I’ve been surrounded by a good team” were just some of the things that I was told.

Hearing those answers made me think about the industries I’m involved with, whether it be the joinery sector with Modern Joinery, or the glazing sector for PiGs. Those that have had multi-decade careers, and their reasonings behind it, aren’t too dissimilar.

The volunteering is hopefully the first of many times I/we will work alongside Evelina London, and look forward to getting our fundraising boots on later in the year to really be able to give back in a bigger way.

A huge thank you goes to the Shepherd’s Hall team for their hospitality, and to Olivia for organising the volunteering.

And if you want to donate to Evelina London Children’s Charity, or help fundraise, visit our newly-created JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/team/modern-joinery-fundraiser?utm_medium=TE&utm_source=CL