Doncaster Samaritans Newsletter 2024

Putting our ‘callers’ first

The Samaritans vision to reduce the rate of suicide, is central to our aims. It is heartening to know that Doncaster Samaritans is part of the service that responds to a call for help every 10 seconds.

2024 has been a busy year at Doncaster and we are very pleased to be able to share a little insight into our activities with our wonderful supporters.

We are all immensely proud of our completely volunteer run branch. The ongoing help from our friends and supporters is essential in enabling us to provide a listening ear for those in need.

Vision for Doncaster Samaritans

Our plan is to grow the Doncaster branch to enable us to increase our support to the national service. We also want to expand our presence in the local community. To achieve these ambitions, we are carrying out some much-needed updates and maintenance to our lovely but old building on Thorne Road in the centre of Doncaster. Our plans include development of disabled access for both users and volunteers, an essential change to ensure equality and accessibility and allow us to continue to serve the people of Doncaster.

Do you know that Samaritans Branches are completely self funded?

As Doncaster Samaritans is a small branch this can be very challenging!

We know that many charities have struggled to raise funds over the last few years, as we continue to feel the impact of the Covid Pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis we want to take the opportunity to thank our supporters and our volunteers!

This year we have been Fundraising at Doncaster Pride, Classic Car Show and also at retail outlets such as Tesco. If you see us out and about, please come and say hello!

In addition one of our volunteers has been fundraising by mobilising his work colleagues to climb all of the Three Peaks in a single day!

and one of our supporters is rowing across Loch Ness to rasie funds for us!

If you have any ideas for fundraising events or if you would like to raise money for Doncaster Samaritans, please get in touch!

Recruitment and training

This year Doncaster Samaritans experienced a decrease in volunteer applications. We ran a recruitment campaign, supported by Doncaster Free Press who carried an article helping us to drive recruitment and communicate the Samaritan’s message locally. Our trainers have been very industrious and on top of their listening duties have managed to run multiple courses over the year to train up new listening volunteers and provide ongoing training for our existing volunteers.

If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a Samaritans Listening Volunteer, or a Support Volunteer more information can be found on the Samaritans website.

Prison support

Doncaster Samaritans provide support to local Prisons via a dedicated group of volunteers. The team trains prisoners to support other inmates, due to the transient nature of Prisons this involves an ongoing programme of interviewing, training and then support of Listeners within the Prison. This aspect of the Samaritan’s services provides much needed emotional support but can be very impactful for Prison Listeners, giving them life skills and supporting their reintroduction into the community.

Taking our message out there

Our outreach work has been extensive in 2024, we have enjoyed attending many external events, attending local businesses, supporting Doncaster Railway Station on key dates e.g. Blue Monday

and having an Open House and welcoming local people into the Samaritans House on Thorne Road as part of loneliness awareness week.

If you know of any groups that would like Doncaster Samaritans to support an event, or a local business that would like Doncaster Samaritans to come in, please get in touch!

Our volunteers & supporters

Doncaster Samaritans couldn’t exist without our wonderful team of volunteer listeners and support volunteers.

This has been a special year for us where we have had the opportunity to come together with our volunteers and families to transform our yard into a wonderfully peaceful oasis of calm in the form of an amazing garden!

Without our very special volunteers we would not be able to continue to support those in need in the Doncaster area and nationally, many take on multiple roles to keep us afloat and we cannot thank them enough!

We couldn’t write this newsletter without reflecting on the sad loss of one of Doncaster Samaritans’ longstanding support volunteer and friend Clive, who sadly passed away earlier this year. He is much missed by colleagues and his legacy lives on through the difference he made to Doncaster Samaritans

Finally, to all of our supporters – what can we say? Words aren’t enough... we would not be here without you. Your contributions to our branch both big and small are very much valued and enables us to be here for our callers, day and night, without judgements in their time of need.

Thank you.

Anne & Peggy

Co-Directors Doncaster Samaritans