I joined Andrea and Maria from SIFA to help with the weekend cleaning services. As volunteers in the week are so busy serving clients, these shifts to keep everything spick and span for people who use the drop-in service are really valuable.

Today, the priorities were mopping the huge floor space in the main social area and giving the kitchen a refresh. Maria took on that mammoth mopping task while I assessed what needed doing in the kitchen.

I became slightly obsessed with the cooker, which was looking worthy of some TLC! I raided the cloth drawer and found all sorts of good scourers and sponges to tackle lots of greasy stains and splashes around the hobs, back wall and doors. It took a lot of elbow grease and sometimes it was tricky to reach the tougher grimey bits, but it looked so nice and shiny afterwards so the graft was worth it!

Many apologies for not getting any photos (I promise I did clean the cooker!) - it was a busy shift being Andrea’s last one with SIFA, so in between my scrubbing I was doing lots of farewell chatting!

Worth giving Andrea a massive shoutout - she has managed the volunteers at weekends for 7 years. Since the breakfast time client-facing volunteer shifts ended when the weekend services were sadly cut due to funding a few years ago, Andrea has been amazing at engaging a team of cleaning volunteers on fortnightly Saturdays and reminding us what an impact our work ‘backstage’ has for the homeless community in Birmingham.

Watch this space for upcoming opportunities to help at SIFA and keep the drop-in feeling really lovely for the clients who use it.