2 June 2025
Sharron (58) has been volunteering with FareShare Southern Central since early 2024 and is based at the warehouse in Totton.
Despite having spent many years working in a secondary school, Sharron was always drawn to being a foster carer. She started fostering 12 years ago and has so far cared for 102 children, many of them teenagers. The children have stayed with her for anything from one night to four years, coming from a wide range of backgrounds and situations.
Alongside her work as a carer, Sharron has been part of the “Mission Christmas” team locally for the past nine years. The initiative is run by Greatest Hits Radio and Cash For Kids, helping to provide toys and Christmas gifts for children across the region and making sure that every child wakes up to a present on Christmas morning. Last year, Sharron and her team provided gifts to 22,000 children.
Sharron says: “Working with Mission Christmas had such a positive impact on my own self-esteem and mental health, for the whole of November and December I was really busy and buzzing. I realised that I wanted to have that feeling all year round, so I started looking for other opportunities to volunteer.”
Reasons for volunteering
In January 2024, Sharron found herself with “three wonderful foster children, who are really settled and don’t need me to be at the school or the police station all the time” and in the fortunate position of having too much time on her hands.
It was then that she saw a story about FareShare Southern Central on the local news, asking for volunteers and, in the spirit of a promise to herself to “say yes to more”, she applied.
Her very first impression of the warehouse was that she was made to feel extremely welcome. Her first task was picking orders where she was taught the ropes by other volunteers. She says: “Even on that very first day I was struck by what a lovely, friendly bunch of people there were here. People introduced themselves and were so helpful answering my questions and showing me around, I felt immediately welcomed and valued.”
Sharron’s role at FareShare and hitting the road
A self-confessed lover of order and a well organised warehouse, from her years working with Mission Christmas, Sharron initially worked in the warehouse carrying out tasks including picking orders for deliveries. She was also instrumental in reorganising the system for storing donations given by customers to Permanent Collection Points (PCPs) in local supermarkets.
One day, Sharron was asked if she would mind going along as a driver’s mate to help at one of the community larders that FareShare Southern Central runs in partnership with other local charities. It was there that she first had a chance to meet some of the people who directly benefit from the food redistributed by FareShare and understand the difference the work makes to them.
Having seen first-hand the impact of the food, Sharron stayed true to her “say yes to more” mantra. She was asked to take her van driver’s assessment, then to cover shifts while someone else was on holiday. Now, 18 months on, Sharron has four regular shifts a week but is always willing to pitch in and help where she can.
She says: “The need is getting greater, and you just want to help as much as you can.”
Depending on the shift, Sharron is usually either a driver or a driver’s mate, responsible for both delivering weekly orders to charities across the region and supplying community larders in various locations. She estimates she covers over 200 miles a week in the FareShare van, helping to serve people and communities around the corner in Totton and Southampton, as well as in the furthest reaches of the Southern Central region. Sharron’s regular routes take her across Hampshire, as far north-east as Basingstoke, and into Dorset, all the way to Gillingham – both of which are an 80-mile round trip from the warehouse. Sometimes she even volunteers to cover the route to Stalbridge on Dorset, the furthest south-west corner of the Southern Central region, and back – a journey of 100 miles.
FareShare Southern Central’s community larders
The larders operate on a membership model, with people paying a small fee depending on whether they are shopping for a single person, a couple or a family. For this they can access a wide range of food, saving a huge amount on weekly shopping bills and stopping food from going to waste. The community groups that run the larders alongside FareShare Southern Central often provide additional services too, such as debt advice, clothing banks, and housing support.
By travelling to the various community larders each week, Sharron says she’s had an opportunity to build relationships with both the community volunteers and the people accessing the service.
Sharron says: “Everyone at the larders is very friendly and lovely, we all enjoy the banter every week. We start to get to know people who are accessing the food there. I love people, so it’s great, but you do see the sad side too sometimes. There are often people who we keep an eye on and who need a bit of extra care. If an elderly person doesn’t come to the larder for a few weeks when they are usually there like clockwork, we try to make sure someone can check in on them.”
The benefits of volunteering
Sharron recalls that one her first day in the warehouse, she was struck by people simply saying, “hi Sharron, how are you?”. She says: “It really meant something to me to be called by my name, rather than always being ‘mum’ or ‘grandma’, or being known by some other label.”
“Once you get to a certain age, nobody really sees you. A few years ago, I had started to feel really invisible and, with such good foster children, a bit like nobody needed me as much as they had before. One day I left the house for the whole day and nobody even noticed. I don’t think anyone asked me how I was, or even knew that I was there.”
Having gained so much from working on the Mission Christmas project, Sharron committed to doing more of what makes her feel happier and has felt huge benefits since starting to volunteer with FareShare.
“I look at my friends of a similar age and I see so many of them are sad. Either they are unhappy in their marriage, or their job, or both, and I think ‘how lucky am I to be here and to be doing this every week?’”.
Most significantly, Sharron says that coming to the warehouse each week and working with the team gives her back her own identity, which she felt she had lost. She says: “I’m Sharron here. I can have a laugh, and swear (!), and be myself. I don’t need to pretend or shield the essence of myself or be on my best behaviour as someone’s mum. I can come alive here and just be me. I feel like I’m back again, like I’m in my early 20s having the best fun with my friends, with the bonus of knowing I’m helping people at the same time. I don’t want it to end.”
Sharron says that her favourite thing about volunteering at FareShare is the people. “I’m a people person,” she says, “I love meeting people from different backgrounds and who have had different life experiences. One of the things that strikes me about the team here is that everyone is treated exactly the same regardless. Everyone is part of the banter and has a chance to join in and have a laugh.”
Her second favourite thing is getting to spend so much time driving through the beautiful scenery of the New Forest.
Inspiring and encouraging others
Sharron says that when she tries to encourage other people to volunteer with FareShare Southern Central, she simply says: “Come to the warehouse, come out with me to see one of our larders. Just give it a go and see how it makes you feel, you’ll want to come back again and again.”
