Trust member Jack Gaches’ volunteer work captures the community spirit down at Champion Hill
20th Nov 2017
Trust member Jack Gaches’ volunteer work captures the community spirit down at Champion Hill
One of our Supporters’ Trust members, Jack Gaches, recalls the day attending a game at Champion Hill led to local .community volunteer work
” As some of you may remember, towards the beginning of the year a local charity, Link Age Southwark, set up a stall at the Dulwich Hamlet vs Needham Market game to raise awareness of the important services they provide to residents aged 60 and above living in Southwark.
Having chatted to those on the stall, I decided to look further into the volunteering opportunities with the charity and eventually applied to be a ‘befriender’, this role involves spending time each week visiting an elderly member of the Southwark community, many of whom are suffering from loneliness and isolation.
I have now been ‘befriending’ a man with dementia for around 7 months, we spend time each week doing a range of things; from simply chatting to one another, playing dominoes, looking at old photos, playing ping pong, or just watching TV. Feedback from his family members and carers has been very positive and I’ve found the experience to be very rewarding and is a great way to give something back to the local community. It has also significantly increased my awareness of dementia and the impact it has on those living with it.
Had it not been for seeing the stall at Champion Hill, there is a good chance that I would not have learned about, or become involved with, Link Age Southwark. The club can therefore take a lot of credit for raising awareness of this local initiative, and this is only one facet of a wide variety of work Dulwich Hamlet FC do in the local community.
If you are interested in becoming involved with Link Age Southwark, you can reach them by telephone 020 8299 2623, email: volunteering@