Eastleigh Volunteer Fair 2025 Sees Great Success

We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who joined us for the Volunteer Fair in Eastleigh last week on January 23rd. Your participation and enthusiasm made this event truly special and showcased the incredible community spirit of Eastleigh.

Whether you came to explore volunteering opportunities, connect with local organisations, or simply show your support, your presence helped bring the event to life. It’s inspiring to see so many people eager to make a difference and contribute their time and talents to causes that matter.

The event was promoted all over Eastleigh which saw a constant footfall with people looking for different opportunities, finding a wealth of conversations from the many impactful causes. Credit to all who helped in getting the message out. We’d like to especially thank Barton Peveril, University of Southampton and Eastleigh Borough Council for their parts as they were very impactful.

The event was held at the University of Southampton Sports Team’s Wide Lane Sportsground with a perfect function space for the Fair while also being such friendly and welcoming hosts!

For those who signed up to volunteer, we’re thrilled to see your journey with these organisations begin. Every small effort makes a big difference, and we’re excited about the positive impact you’ll have on the community. it was already inspiring enough to receive your feedback for the Fair:

“Really informative, lots of great charities with passionate representatives. Keep up all the good work + thank you. “

“Very informative and interesting. Great atmosphere with wide range of organisations.”

“Excellent. Great opportunity to meet organisations and ask questions re what they offer, expectations, time commitments etc.”

“I found this very interesting, and advice was good to get to help me decide what to do next in my life.”

“Really good mix of volunteers. All friendly and approachable”

“Brilliant, super informative, better than online. Meeting in person makes you feel more engaged and committed and understanding the volunteer groups’ missions and work some availability. Must do this again! Good location, easy parking”

Thank you to the Mayor of Eastleigh, Cllr David Pragnell, for joining us and thoroughly getting involved when visiting every stall accompanied by Community First Chief Exec, Tim Houghton.

Head event organiser and Community First Community Development Worker for Eastleigh, Jo Proctor, was very proud of how the event went:

“We were really pleased to see so many enthusiastic residents attend our Eastleigh Volunteer Fair last week.

This was the first event of this kind we’ve run in the borough, and it was great to see enthusiastic people of all ages coming through the doors looking for local opportunities to donate their time, skills and energy to. We know that volunteers are the lifeblood of the organisations that we’re supporting, and we hope that this event is the start of a journey for the attendees, that will bring them as much benefit as it does the groups they will be volunteering with.”

A huge thank you also goes out to the organizations and groups who joined us to offer volunteering opportunities, share your missions, and engage with potential volunteers. The Fair saw a great variety of 25 causes. You can view the full list of exhibitors here.

Thank you to Eastleigh Borough Council for funding this event.

If you missed the event but are interested in volunteering, there are still plenty of opportunities available!

Whether you’d like to increase your skills, socialise more, give back to your local community, or any other reason, find your perfect volunteering role at Volunteer First.