The Leicester Mercury has again laid down the gauntlet to its readers with the launch of its second challenge of 2001 – to recruit 100 volunteers.

Just days after the success of the first Mercury Challenge – to equip and furnish the St Bernard’s Centre for sexually abused children – the paper is asking for help to make National Volunteers Week in June the best yet.

The paper has teamed up with 10 volunteer bureaux across the county to identify their most pressing vacancies. And the We Need You challenge aims to fill the list in time for Volunteers Week, from June 1 to 7.

The Mercury has published a list of volunteering opportunities, including drivers, and companions for the elderly, in the paper and on its website.

Over the next few weeks it will be giving updates about how the challenge is going.

Pam Taylor, a volunteer co-ordinator for Age Concern Leicester, said: “We’ve got 503 volunteers working in the city, who contribute something like £600,000 of unpaid work, based on the minimum wage.

“We would not be able to carry out the work we do without the volunteers we have.

“A lot of people come to us to expand their CVs and gain skills be fore trying the get a job, and we support that.

“The people who volunteer for Age Concern are not just the elderly – we have everything from university students to people in their 80s. Also, skilled people who have retired offer their time to us to stop their skills going to waste.”

For more information on National Volunteers Week, visit the volunteersweek.org.uk website.

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