Why Do I Volunteer

By Emma Clark
I have chosen to volunteer with Kidney Cancer Scotland for several reasons.I believe volunteering reflects who you are and what you stand for. You volunteer with a specific group, charity, or organisation because you are passionate about what they stand for, you want to help, and you want to make a difference. That is why I volunteer. I want my words and my actions to help someone, even if it is just one person.
I volunteer with Kidney Cancer Scotland as a Community Champion; more so in the social media aspect of it. I write (and will continue writing for many years to come) blog posts that detail how we can respond to grief, how to deal with kidney cancer, and speaking to children about cancer. After my dad passed away from kidney cancer, and as I got older, I wanted to volunteer with a charity that I felt I could have used at the time he was ill. I want to pay it forward.
The mission of Kidney Cancer Scotland is something I am incredibly passionate about and proud to be a part of. The charity aims to assist both locally and nationally in their cause to raise awareness of kidney cancer and its symptoms. For a cancer that has limited visible symptoms, which often appear unrelated when one thinks of the ‘typical’ symptoms you would expect from cancer, raising awareness has the power to massively impact early diagnoses.I am so incredibly proud of the work this charity does, and I hope that in our quest to help those suffering with kidney cancer, the work volunteers do helps to raise awareness of this disease.