Hestia volunteer wins Team London award

On Monday, Hestia volunteer Rossella Castello – from our RBKC befriending scheme won the “Supporting & Inspiring” award from Team London (the Mayor of London’s official volunteering programme for London).

Rossella won the award last night at London’s City Hall for her dedication and passion working alongside Hestia to support adults and children in crisis.

From Team London and Rossella’s supervisor, Cosimo:

“Rossella volunteers as a 1-2-1 befriender, supporting those with mental health issues. Although Rossella was matched with a gentleman who was 30 years her senior, with a wide range of social, mental and deeply personal challenges, she has not let the wide generation gap be an obstacle, and their partnership has truly blossomed, due to her caring, open minded, altruistic, non-judgmental, creative nature.

Through patience and encouragement, Rossella has helped her befriendee to start using public transport, which gives him the ability to meet, and build relationships with others and greatly increasing his confidence.”

From Rossella’s nominator:

“Rossella is a beautiful and inspiring young woman who has literally transformed the life of her befriendee”.

This is the second year in a row that Hestia volunteers have been nominated at the Team London Awards which was set up in 2011 to celebrate volunteers across the city. The TeamLondonAwards consisted of 10 categories and has hundreds of nominations every year, find out more here.

An award was also won last night by Hogan Lovells for whom Hestia is their Charity partner! The international law firm have volunteered with Hestia for many years now and have pledged to fundraise for Hestia for three years. It is great to have their hard work recognised and another accolade for Hestia.

Hestia provides volunteering opportunities across London in a wide range of different services. For more information and to get involved see our Volunteering page.