The Passing of Time : A short video by Carla Thompson
A snippet of the many volunteers in Brighouse giving their time for their community.
CREDITS (groups on the film): Friends of Brighouse Station – Wellholme Park Jumps – Friends of Wellholme Park – Incredible Edible Brighouse – Park Row Centre – Focus4Hope – The Calder Conservation Group CIC -Malcolm Silkstone (Bailiff Bridge)
Calderdale & Kirklees Recovery College
A Volunteer's Story - Abdurab, St Augustine's Centre
During Volunteers’ Week, we want to celebrate one of our incredible centre volunteers whose journey reminds us of the power of kindness, resilience, and community. This story is about a centre member volunteers Abdurab.
After arriving in the UK from Afghanistan, he faced years of uncertainty while going through the asylum process. Despite the challenges, isolation, and many moments where he felt let down by the system, he chose not to give up. Instead, he chose to give back.
For the past few years, he has volunteered in our Tech Lab, helping others with patience, skill, and compassion. Recently, after a long and difficult journey, he was finally granted leave to remain — a moment of hope and justice that we are so proud to celebrate with him.
He once told us:
“When you are depressed, sitting home alone makes it worse. You overthink. You only see four walls around you.
Volunteering helped me.”
Through volunteering, he reconnected with the passion and skills he developed back in Afghanistan as a technician. But more importantly, he found purpose in helping people who were struggling just like he once did.
“At first, I thought people only worked for money. But when I came here, I realised money is not everything. In Afghanistan I paid to learn these skills — now I help people for free. At night, I think about the people I helped, and their thanks feels like a million pounds to me.”
He also shared how volunteering reminded him that everyone carries their own struggles:
“When I am here, I see many people with more problems than me. Every person has a different struggle. When I speak to people, I feel good.”
His story is a powerful reminder that volunteering is not only about helping others — it can also heal, connect, and inspire us. We are deeply grateful for everything he has given to our community, and we know his journey will inspire many others.
NSPCC Schools Service
A Volunteering Story - The Space @ Field Lane
One of the most recent stories to tell is of when our Litter Picking Group (Rastrick Litter Legends) go out on to the estate and collects litter.
The amount of local people that have come up to our volunteers and thanked them for trying to make the area cleaner and tidier is amazing.
Our volunteers come back afterwards beaming with pride and tell us all about the amount of people that actually take time to thank them personally.
BrodStock Music Festival
We’re proud to say that Calderdale’s biggest annual music event, that’s also one of Yorkshire’s biggest annual benefit gigs, is fuelled by well over 100 volunteers.
Since Brodstock began in 2014 there’s been a marriage of community groups and work colleagues that have built a calendar event that has now grown into a much loved and hugely credible festival attracting a sell-out family audience of 6000.
Borne from a widow’s ambition to buddy up with a local rugby club, to raise funds for our local hospice and the club itself; Hipperholme’s Brodstock has now raised over £100,000 for Overgate Hospice, plus £25,000 for Yorkshire Air Ambulance and thousands more for charities like the Calderdale MS Group.
An army of volunteers from the Old Brodleians Rugby Club use their own annual leave to turn the sports fields into a festival site that features three performance stages, a dedicated “kids zone”, sports area, market stalls and all the necessary infrastructure. Charity partners bring their volunteers and local employers like Lloyds and Royal Sun Alliance bring teams of people for a day out of the office “to make a difference” and support the set up. Even the talented musician volunteer by donating their performances the causes.
It genuinely is a Calderdale volunteering and community success story and no worries it’s known as “the little festival with the big heart”. Brodstock 2026 takes place on Saturday 20th June and there’s more details at www.brodstock.co.uk
