Volunteering with friends

Friends Volunteering Together

Imagine volunteering with your very best friend, bringing happiness and joy to sick kids! Annette and Sue recently joined Starlight as volunteers in the Starlight Express Room at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Sue's story

I met my wonderful, dear friend Annette through our husbands many years ago. We hit it off immediately, most probably as we are very like-minded in many ways.

She is an amazing friend, always there no matter what. She is kind, thoughtful, generous and a great listener. We have many fun times together and I love the fact that we can volunteer together at Starlight.

I saw the call-out for Starlight volunteers on Facebook and immediately thought of Annette. She was, of course, very keen.

We applied and went through the recruitment process together. I realise an organisation like Starlight would have a strict recruitment processes, but we didn’t expect it to be sooooo long!! I often joked with Annette that we were being recruited for the FBI!

We got through it and it’s so worth it. Our first volunteer shift was exhausting but fabulous – we had such a lot to take in!

I just love working with the kids and seeing their happy faces. The Captain Starlights are great fun and I love all their characters, and how they go “off to check the rocket” etc.

Annette's story

My friendship with Sue is very special. She is a fantastic person - very loyal and caring and has been there for me through some very hard personal times. But she is also fun and basically we like the same things. We always enjoy our time together, no matter what we are doing. We have spoken many times over the last 3 years about finding a volunteer role to do together because we both believe in it.

Sue contacted me when she saw a Facebook recruitment ad for Starlight. I love the work that Starlight does and thought it would be a fantastic organisation to be a part of, and of course felt that it would be great to spend time with the children. So that's where it all started.

I think that volunteering in the Starlight Express Room takes a very small amount of pressure off the families and I believe that anything that brightens the children’s day is a very worthwhile thing to do.

I really enjoyed my first shift. I found it very mentally exhausting, mainly because I was trying to do everything 100% right. The atmosphere was good and the children were happy. The Captains play very good roles and keep things moving along.