WORKFORCE woes imposed on businesses throughout the COVID-19 crisis are also affecting the charity sector, which is struggling to find enough volunteers to keep shops open.
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Uniting Care's senior manager for retail Heather Thompson said there had been a 30 per cent reduction in the number of volunteers available to staff the organisation's op shops in the past two years.
"A lot of our volunteers are older people and they may be more vulnerable to health issues,'' she said. "Many of the volunteers opted out due to their own fears about COVID."
Ms Thompson said the success of the op shops paid for the delivery of local services for people in need. Donations of clothing, bric-a-brac and other goods received in Greater Bendigo were sold through shops located at White Hills, California Gully and Golden Square.
"The donations don't leave the area - they stay here. And all of the money that is raised by those shops goes back into funding the services we provide in Bendigo," she said.
Vinnies Victoria executive general manager of commercial services Jeff Antcliff said the loss of volunteers at his organisation's op-shops was currently about 10 per cent, following the success of recent recruitment rounds.
"We respect and understand the many reasons why our volunteers chose to step back,'' he said.
"Our volunteer numbers are down by about 10 per cent state wide compared to 12 months ago. However, over the past three months there have been more volunteers joining than leaving. And a lot of younger ones are coming in."
Mr Antcliff said he would implore people to be nice to volunteers who work in op shops.
"We ask people to be patient with us and respect those people who have showed up,'' he said.
"We don't have as many people as we normally would."
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Australian Red Cross media spokeswoman Susan Cullinan said the charity's retail experience had varied in the past two years.
"It's very much a patchy story during the pandemic,'' she said. "We always need volunteers and we do provide really good training."
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