Mercy Community (MC) is celebrating National Volunteer Week by highlighting the wonderful work of just some of our many volunteers.
MC recently nominated Julie for the Volunteering Queensland 2019 Volunteer of the Year award, as her team is constantly blown away by her compassion and reliability. Julie has been volunteering for Mercy Community’s Romero Multicultural Hub (Romero) for over a decade. She dedicates five hours to Romero every week, where she welcomes visitors to Romero and collects data. Staff at Romero say that Julie is incredibly reliable, and will turn up rain, hail, or shine, to complete her duties.
Julie’s work enables Romero to respond to the needs of clients quickly and effectively. This means Romero can supply people seeking asylum with the resources they need to access necessary supports. This could mean connecting them with safe housing, or a migration agent, or perhaps one of the groups of classes Romero offers.
Julie will never make a fuss about anything that needs to be done in her working day at Romero. She treats every task with the importance it requires and creates a safe space for clients while she completes them. Julie is the perfect example of an ‘unsung hero.’ She is one of the longest-standing members of the Romero family, and in that time, has proven herself to be an invaluable all-rounder.
The team and clients at Romero describe Julie as being extremely gentle and welcoming, two qualities that are vital when meeting with people seeking asylum and refugees. Julie exemplifies many of the MC Values in her daily work at Romero, showing mercy in the way she communicates with everyone she comes across. She treats every client with dignity, showing refugees and people seeking asylum with the utmost compassion and respect.
The theme of National Volunteer Week here in Queensland is Making a World of Difference. The team at Romero can certainly attest to the fact that Julie’s warm and welcoming nature makes a world of difference to the clients she meets each week.
Thank you, Julie, for your years of service, and for exemplifying the MC Values in every aspect of your volunteer role. Every week, you are making a world of difference in our Mercy Community.
