Five reasons to volunteer in your local charity shop

Whether it’s getting clothes ready for the shop floor, sorting donations, doing online research, or chatting to a customer across the till, volunteers keep our shops open and raise vital money to support children, young people and families. We couldn’t do it without them. 

But it’s not just people using our services who benefit, the volunteers get something out of it, and you could too.

Read about five benefits of volunteering in your local charity shop. 

1. It helps you feel a part of your local community 
2. You’ll be helping make fashion more sustainable 
3. It might help you get a new job 
4. It could improve your mental and physical health  
5. You’ll be helping change childhoods and change lives 

Volunteering in your local charity shop is a great way to feel part of your local area. Charity shops are often community hubs with regulars calling in. You’ll get to know people from your neighbourhood and be part of helping your local high street. 

If you can create window displays that draw people into our shops or help a customer find something they need, you’ll be giving pre-loved goods a new lease of life and reducing waste. Charities divert 350,000 tonnes of textiles a year from ending up in landfill or being incinerated, (WRAP, 2024) but we need volunteers like you to help customers find their new favourite thing to wear. 

You’ll get the chance to develop lots of new skills if you volunteer in a charity shop which could help you if you’re looking for employment. The experience you get in things like using a till, sorting stock, pricing and visual merchandising (where you create eye-catching product displays and store layouts to encourage sales) can be really helpful if you’re looking to get a job in retail.  

But the skills you’ll learn are just as helpful if you want a different sort of career. You’ll learn about health and safety, teamwork and customer service. Lucky Sandhu who works in our HR team and is involved in recruitment says, “Volunteering in a charity shop is a rewarding experience and a great way to give back to society. It also shows a potential employer that you are likely to have lots of valuable transferable skills. You’ll probably be comfortable speaking to different types of people, be good at working in a team and eager to learn new things. These are skills that employers, whether a charity or more commercial organisation, are likely to look for when recruiting.” 

Our volunteers are as diverse as the communities around them, so you’ll find people of all ages and backgrounds in our stores. Lots of our older volunteers tell us that being part of a store team helps them feel happy and healthy. Ruby, is 94 years-old and has volunteered in her local store for 30 years. 

It’s not just older people who can experience health benefit from volunteering. People aged 18-34 are the age group most likely to say volunteering helped them feel less isolated (NCVO, 2019). Over three-quarters of volunteers reported that volunteering improved their mental health and wellbeing, and over half said they felt their physical health benefited (NCVO, 2019).   

Volunteers in our charity shops raise vital funds that help support children, young people and families. They make a huge difference in how we help people across the UK, from helping run parent and child support groups so new mums and dads don’t feel alone, to supporting care leavers get set up in their first homes. And they tell us it’s an amazing feeling knowing you’re part of something that helps so many people. Liz who volunteers in Cardiff says that while she loves chatting with regulars while working the till, “the best thing about volunteering is helping to raise funds for this lovely charity to help children.”