Tadley Woman wins Volunteer of the Year award
A Tadley woman has won SeeAbility’s Volunteer of the Year award. Eirlys Davies, a retired teacher, was recognised for her outstanding contribution as a volunteer at SeeAbility’s Heather House in Tadley. Heather House is the only specialist residential care home for young people with Juvenile Batten’s Disease – a degenerative, life-limiting condition which causes blindness, loss of motor skills and mental capacity and most young people with the disease die before they are thirty. SeeAbility, formerly the Royal School for the Blind, supports people with a visual impairment and additional complex disabilities focusing on developing essential life skills for greater independence and quality of life.
Eirlys has been a volunteer at Heather House for over 10 years. She plays an invaluable role as a member of the volunteer team and also brings a calmness and sense of humour to everything she does. Eirlys always puts the needs of the person she supports first and she has a deeply sensitive approach. She has been a tremendous support to the physiotherapists in particular in helping people access the hydrotherapy pool, enabling them to increase the number of people who are able to access the pool sessions each week. Eirlys also helps out with a range of other activities from reading to cooking. Eirlys started volunteering after retiring as a teacher and giving a young man living at Heather House who loved maths one to one lessons which were the highlight of his week. When the young man died last year, Eirlys was thanked at his funeral for everything she had done for him.
Eirlys comments, “I am delighted to win this award. Being a volunteer at Heather House is hugely rewarding because you always feel aware of the positive impact you can have on someone’s life. I feel very humbled by the truly wonderful young people I work with and their humour and resilience is inspiring.”
Anita McIntyre, Volunteer Manager comments, “Over the past 10 years Eirlys has shown a tremendous dedication to the young people and staff of Heather House. We have a fantastic team of volunteers at Heather House who provide many varied skills and time commitments for our service. Eirlys was nominated by the Physiotherapy Team for her outstanding work with them. She has consistently been available to help in any way she can and her sensitivity and resourcefulness has meant that she has made a phenomenal contribution to the lives of the people we support. All our volunteers play a significant role in our service however Eirlys has shown herself to be an outstanding and worthy winner of the Volunteer of the Year Award.”
If you are interested in volunteering at Heather House please call Anita McIntyre on: 0118 981 7772.