A VOLUNTEER who has been helping a charity for 14 years is appealing for other people to give up their time for the cause.

Yvonne Lloyd has helped Worcester Shopmobility – which loans disabled people mobility scooters so they can access the city more easily – for 14 years and, with the charity looking for new volunteers, she's urging more people to get involved.

Mrs Lloyd, 80, said: “I love it. It’s just nice because it is allowing people to have another lease of life and not be stuck in doors.”

Mrs Lloyd is disabled and uses a mobility scooter with the number 007, earning her the nickname ‘Moneypenny’ from the staff at Marks & Spencer in Worcester.

“We have to be really nice to people because no one knows what they are suffering," she said. "They come in here and they enjoy it. They come in on their wheelchair and someone will help them into the scooter, then they have a new lease of life because they have got their scooter and they can go round and do their shopping.

“We know them all by their first names. The worst of it is when some of them have been with us for many years and then they pass away and the families come and say, ‘we would love you to come to the funeral.’ I hate it in one way but I don’t in a way because you see so much of them that you become part of them. You get so used to them that they are just your friends. You can have a laugh with them and they enjoy it.”

Mrs Lloyd worked for 29 years in a library in London before retiring and moving to Worcester with her husband Mike, who volunteers with her at Shopmobility.

Mrs Lloyd said: “We are finding it very difficult to get people to come in and work for nothing.”

Mrs Lloyd said volunteers can work flexible hours, doing half days if they prefer.

“We have to show new users how to use the scooters – if you have never used one it can be very dangerous. They then have to fill in forms,” she said.

The charity also lets people pay to hire out scooters to take on holiday.

The most important job at Shopmobility, however, is ‘being there for people’, Mrs Lloyd told the Worcester News.

“You have got to learn to love the people that come in here. Some of them are so lonely, you have to be understanding.”

Shopmobility is based on level six of Crowngate Shopping Centre. Call 01905 610523 for more information.

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