Meet Marie, one of our incredible CYZ Voluntines who has been inspiring our young people through mentoring and youth sport activities in senior club since 2022! 🏀 Read her story to learn why volunteering with CYZ is ‘way more than giving back’!

I started volunteering with the Youth Zone 2.5 years ago as a mentor and now volunteer on a Friday night doing sports within senior club.

I originally got in touch with the Youth Zone as I wanted to give something back but also do something for me again after having two children and moving to a remote working job. Previously I had always worked in or led a team and I was missing out on coaching people at work so decided I would look around and found mentoring at the Youth Zone.

Having been matched with a young person we spent an hour a week together focusing on some key objectives we had set as part of our first couple of sessions. Seeing the change in my mentee over the 12 month period was fantastic and really rewarding. But alongside this I also got some great mentoring training, learnt some great tools,and met great people.

Following my 12 months of mentoring I then got a new job so was struggling with the weekly commitment however, the Youth Zone needed someone to help run a This Girl Can sports session so I got involved with that. This meant I could still volunteer but also gave me more flexibility when I couldn’t make sessions.

I think the main things I’ve taken from volunteering with the Youth Zone is: it’s way more than just giving back – alongside the obvious benefits to the young people you also learn and develop yourself too; it can be as structured or flexible as you need – Emma is great at working with you to make things work; and finally you get to be part of a great team that’s making a huge difference.