BEING generous is great for your mental health and wellbeing. It doesn’t always mean parting with cash in a charity box or sponsoring someone for a worthy cause.

At the present time, not everyone has money spare to give away and that is just the way it is.

We all have a face to smile with, a heart to love with, and care about others.

A smile if your eyes meet a stranger when out and about, free to give, immeasurable to the recipient. If someone smiles at me, it gives me a warm feeling and I am grateful for it. Try it.

Another thing we can all offer is time. Time to listen, time to think about ways to help others.

Have you considered volunteering in a charity shop or at a venue like a museum, visitor attraction, or a theatre?

People are always needed for roles like this. While you are helping them, you will be amazed at how it will make you feel. Being useful and generous with your time.

In my capacity as a Director of Somerset Armed Forces Day, I was blown away by the generosity of so many people who volunteered their time to help make the day such a huge success.

Without our volunteers we simply could not have put the event on. Keep an eye on social media and in the press for opportunities at local events.

Being a volunteer can enable you to feel useful, get out and about and make new friends with shared interests. All very positive things.

For this topic, I would love to tell you about a local charity I am helping.

I love all animals and Secret World in Highbridge invited me over to have a look behind the scenes. Blimey, it wasn’t long before my heart burst with longing to help them carry out all the fantastic work they do there.

Their website is https://www.secretworld.org/ on the website you can see stories and case studies of some of the amazing things they do to help wildlife.

Badgers, foxes, hedgehogs, mice, snakes, deer, emus the list is endless. All creatures great and small.

I was shown around the treatment rooms and the storage rooms where they keep all the generous donations of pet food, medical products.

Cleaning materials, towels, etc…. again, this list is endless. They are constantly in need of these types of donations.

They are only allowed to let families and the public in on a few days of the year…look out for dates and pop them in your calendars.

If you are doing charity things like cake baking, jumble sales etc, please keep them in mind as your chosen charity.

If you are a local business owner, consider making them your charity of the year? The staff at Walpole Dunn are wing walking and jumping out planes for them this week. Bucket List?

I could write for hours on this topic, but I have bust my word count for this week.

See you again in two weeks. Until then – Stay safe and be kind.

Written by Trish Caller