Betty started volunteering at Glasgow City Mission after someone dear to her changed his life, with the support of our team. This person had been struggling with addiction, and felt he had hit a crisis point. He found the help he needed to recover from our Rehab Pathways service, which offers support groups and tailored one-to-one sessions for guests to heal from addiction before, during and after rehab.
Prior to this, Betty had not known anyone experiencing drug addiction. Drugs, and the people using them, confused and even scared her. She couldn’t understand why people found it so difficult to stop taking them. After seeing the impact of addiction first-hand on someone she cared for, she knew she wanted to help others in similar situations.
When Betty first came along to volunteer at our free Drop-in meals, she was nervous about how people might react to her and whether or not she would connect with anyone. She was delighted to find that guests, staff and other volunteers were friendly, welcoming and keen to chat. Two years later, she has now developed meaningful relationships with those individuals and become an important part of the Mission’s community. She finds that sharing her own personal experience of addiction has particularly helped her to connect with guests who are going through something similar.
Throughout her time volunteering at our Drop-ins, Betty has learned to choose compassion over fear. She now understands that all the guests really want is to feel loved and be seen. Betty comes back every week to show the love of God to everyone she meets, and when they thank her she tells them “don’t thank me, thank God!”
She encourages anyone considering volunteering to try it out once to see for themselves the difference they could make, and the ways it could change their own lives.
