Live to Love

The London-based UK sangha has been holding meetings on Live to Live Sundays
so that those not yet engaged in Live to Love activities on that day can
exchange ideas and update each other on our progress. Here in London there
are literally thousands of community volunteering opportunities covering
many situations where people need help e.g. working with the elderly, the
sick, the homeless, children in need etc - practically anything you can
think of where people need help.

Since we discovered that we all have different interests and since London is
such a vast city we decided to approach volunteering agencies on an
individual basis to start with. All this takes time as the normal procedure
is to send in an application form and attend an interview (after references
have been checked), before you can actually start the activity. We thought
that once somebody has been accepted by an agency there could be an
opportunity for a group based activity.

Anyway, here is a summaryof the different ideas we are pursuing right now:

Giving Blood - www.blood.co.uk - procedure is to fill in application form
online and you will be sent an appointment.

Dog walking for people who are housebound.

Hospital visiting - one of our group works at a big London hospital and is
going to research how to become a hospital visitor, to visit patients in
hospital who don’t get any visitors otherwise. There is also a scheme to
take a (friendly) dog along on the visit.

Hospice visiting is also being considered.

Working with the Elderly - this seems to be a popular activity. One of our
group has an interview this week for a volunteer job teaching computer
skills to elderly people. Another person has contacted a group who arrange
visits for very elderly people (usually in their 80s or 90s) to visit
another volunteers house for tea. You can either volunteer to be a driver or
to host a tea party for a small group. All this takes place on a Sunday
afternoon which fits in very nicely with Live to Love day ! Befriending
elderly people is also being investigated.

Support for carers - somebody has actually started this one ! She has been
helping someone who is a full-time carer in whatever way is needed
(housework, ironing etc).

Another simple activity which doesn’t require an interview is fetching food
and hot drinks for beggars and tramps if they need this - a few people have
been doing this on an ad hoc basis - although the feedback is that it is
always best to ask first as sometimes they have quite a lot of things
offered !

So we are not short of ideas and we are slowly getting ourselves organised
to act in a Live to Love way - we hope that these short notes will inspire
other people to join in - please let us know on this website of any
activities you may already be engaged in. We all find it very useful to have
a group like this so that we can inspire and support each other.

best wishes
from the London-based Live to Love group