"Every club I attend feels like an anchor to my community"

Please note: this post is 71 months old and The Cares Family is no longer operational. This post is shared for information only

Emily has been volunteering with South London Cares for over 4 years and in that time has attended a whopping 64 social clubs. Here she tells us what first motivated her to get involved and what’s kept her coming back...

So, I’ve been lucky enough to volunteer for South London Cares for about four years. When I started writing this, I realised it was really quite hard to explain the hundred small ways their work lifts people up - and I include myself in that.

I think the best way to explain why I’m part of the South London Cares community and what, to me, makes it so special is by sharing a fond memory.

To set the scene, it was one of our Desert Island Discs social clubs (which, ulike the radio show, has more dancing and singing than listening at times!). And I remember one older neighbour arrived slightly late, and as it was his first ever social club, he stood on the outskirts of our group, looking on nervously. It must have been an initially strange sight: he’d arrived to a group of apparently unconnected individuals singing and dancing to Come On Eileen.

I think this image alone on could demonstrate the amazing nature of The Cares Family (they also have a North London Cares, Manchester Cares and Liverpool Cares too, as well as an East London Cares, which will be opening in September) social clubs. There’s no pressure. Older neighbours can be as involved as they want. You absolutely don’t have to read at script reading (you can just listen and laugh along with us). And in craft club you can be as un-crafty as nature made you – it’s all about chatting and feeling a sense of belonging, as well as meeting people you might not otherwise have the chance to.

But back to the story: we always invite people in. So I asked this new older neighbour if he would like to sit in our circle. Which he did – though all the while making comments that he was “just passing through” and “only stopping for a minute”.

I’m happy to tell you that by the end of the club we were not only chatting and laughing together, but he was up and dancing himself - helped along, no doubt, by my excellent rendition of Aretha Franklin’s Respect. I’ve now spoken to him at every single Desert Island Discs Social club I’ve been to since.

While trying not to sound too cheesy, I think this really sums up South London Cares and the wider Cares Family. They provide the setting for something so essential but often in short supply: friendship and fellowship.

I’m not originally from London and I still sometimes feel I don’t know many people here, but every club I attend feels like an anchor to my community, and I know the older neighbours I speak to feel the same. Especially important in such a fast changing city as ours.

By coming together we feel reassured and accepted. Like and even loved.