Ordsall born and raised, 38-year-old Samantha Hickey has spent her entire life volunteering and fundraising for various charities within her community.
After seeing the challenges that the community in Ordsall faced in her youth, Samantha made it her mission to ensure that everyone has access to the same opportunities her parents helped her to achieve.
“It was quite a closed community,” Samantha said, “no-one really ventured outside the walls.
“But because I had ventured out and realised what opportunities there were, I wanted the people I grew up with to have that chance too.
“I didn’t want anyone to get left behind.”
Living in the New Barracks tenant management co-operative with her mum and dad, a large, volunteer-led organisation, Samantha’s interest in volunteering began at a young age, often helping out with fundraisers and observing her parents’ community work, including setting up Ordsall’s first parent-toddler group in the local library using her toys.
“I think being around other people that were volunteering inspired me to carry it on.
“I thought it was the norm and everybody did it!”
Samantha currently volunteers at The Tatton Community Hub, a centre dedicated to improving the lives of the residents surrounding it, including running a cafe with heavily reduced food prices, running social activities and training opportunities, as well as community support services for people of all ages.
Samantha was recruited to volunteer at The Tatton in 2000 by a group of nuns who had seen the work she was doing at the New Barracks, and they asked her to come and help them out.
“The Tatton is important to me because it has played an important role in the neighbourhood by creating opportunities for connections, learning and community development.
“When we first opened all those years ago, people would say, ‘It’ll only be open a year and then you’ll run out of funding’, and then we surpassed the first year, and now we are on our 26th year!”
“A lot of people who come to the cafe are isolated and have nowhere else to go – we are their lifelines, so it’s quite fulfilling to see the difference it makes to people’s lives.”
Outside of her volunteering, Samantha is an avid charity fundraiser in the community, through both her full-time job at a solicitor’s firm and external fundraisers which she organises through The Tatton, related to causes close to the heart of the Ordsall community – most notably an Alzheimer’s ‘memory walk’ which raised over £1600.
“16 of us did the walk, and we raised around £1600 altogether,” Samantha said, “we had a memory tree up in the cafe and made tags so people could come in and write a memory on there or an example of how Alzheimer’s had impacted them.
“The tree was absolutely covered – some people were crying, some people were laughing and they were sharing all of their stories which made you realise how it really impacts everybody.”
When asked if she had any advice for people looking to get involved in volunteering in their community, Samantha said: “Every small contribution to a charity makes a big difference to them and the people that they support.
“I would definitely tell people to get involved – it’s so rewarding and you get so much out of it, whether it’s giving some time back, building connections, learning new skills, I think making that difference gives you instant gratification, especially when you see it firsthand.
“I would definitely try and convince as many people as possible to volunteer.”
