Yelvercare – QAVS citation
Posted on: 1 July 2012
Yelvercare is a vibrant and hugely appreciated community volunteer organisation whose aim is to offer help to anyone within Yelverton and surrounding villages.
Yelverton is a moorland village with a number of relatively remote homes and an ageing population, leading to large population of people who value help with many of the things more active people take for granted, such as attending non emergency hospital appointments, shopping, and visiting the hairdressers.
Tasks are varied but as well as transport, volunteers have helped recently with dog walking, visiting, and reading mail to the blind. Yelvercare operates on a simple yet effective basis; everyone in the catchment area has a booklet that tells them about the service and gives a mobile phone number for them to ring. Each day a different volunteer mans the phone and once a request is received locates a volunteer to respond to the request. Additionally, the area is divided up by streets so that a volunteer can keep an eye out for local residents who may need help. Once a month a lunch is held for the elderly, cooked and served by Yelvercare volunteers, who also collect and return those in need of transport, and every a year a tea party is held for all those who use the service. A village cinema now runs successfully having been initiated by a bequest to Yelvercare.
With 120 volunteers, many long serving, and no paid staff, it completed 650 tasks last year and currently has some 95 beneficiaries. It is a free service (contributions towards costs are welcomed but never demanded) with expenses available for volunteers, and in practice generates a surplus that is used for further community benefit such as support for the local play park.
