Volunteer Spotlight: Meet Gill, a Nest Community volunteer who does regular shifts in The Nest Haberdashery and as a mentor in the free program, Exchange Project.
After attending a Mexican Embroidery workshop at The Nest in October 2018 Gill decided to start volunteering in March 2018.
But it wasn’t just a love of crafting that prompted the decision to volunteer.
“I like crafting and have always been a bit of a hoarder of wool, fabric and other craft stuff. But, I also like the social side of volunteering and the camaraderie. [At The Nest] There’s a big range of personalities and age groups.”
During the COVID pandemic, The Nest launched the Exchange Project, a free mentoring program that partners with local high schools to teach vulnerable girls craft skills. With more than 30 years of experience as a Brownie Leader, Gill had a great affinity with the concept and was one of our first volunteer mentors, a role she continues today.
Not only does she love to see the girls come out of their shells, develop confidence and self-esteem, but they are not the only ones to learn new skills.
“ It keeps my skills going and I learn new ones. All the different mentors have their own way of doing things so I learn new things too”.
Taking the time to pass on skills can also be a test of patience and Gill’s advice is that you just have to ‘go with the flow’.
“One girl already had a project on-the-go but came in saying her sock had a hole in it. We talked about it and she was keen to learn how to darn the hole. We taught her to use a darning mushroom [from the Heritage Collection] and she was thrilled to fix her sock. She was so excited to go home and tell her mum that she’d learnt a skill so that if she saw a small hole in her sock she could fix it before it became bigger”.
Mentors working in the program need to often take a lead from the girls. At times they work independently or could require assistance from more than one mentor at a time – it’s a flexible support program.
“All of the Exchange girls are special because they’re all different and have their own ways of doing things. One is very ambitious and has to be gently reined in – always wants to go the extra step with a project. You’ve got to bring it back to the basics.”
When volunteering in the Textile Recovery Centre, Gill particularly likes sorting donations, interested to see what older items might come through and how some things never change. During The Nest’s move from Everton Park to Brendale, Gill helped catalogue the sewing pattern collection with some dating as far back as the 1920s.
Gill says, “I found them fascinating. Fashion is so cyclical that some of them could still be made today.”
Not being a person who can just sit around, Gill likes to have something in her hands to do and regularly takes knitting or crochet with her, even when she travels. She also enjoys the feeling of completing a task – all traits she shares with other volunteers we suspect.
“When I finished my shift yesterday there was another volunteer sorting a donation of crochet cottons and sticky taping all the ends. She was determined to finish them all before she went home.”
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