As part of Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June), we are putting the spotlight on Leigh and Jon Levoir who joined Saint Francis Hospice’s E-commerce team in November 2022.

They give up their time to help run the eBay store which has been running for 13 years from the charity’s retail headquarters in Ashton Gate, Harold Hill and is supplied by direct donations and stock from the shops.

Here Jon tells us why they wanted to get involved and about his experience so far…

Leigh and I stopped work in the middle of 2022 and always said we wanted to do some sort of volunteering.

Having lived locally for many years, we wanted to make a difference in our local community.

We knew of the excellent work Saint Francis Hospice does through friends and family and when we saw the hospice was looking for E-Commerce volunteers, we jumped at the chance as we have always been keen eBayers ourselves.

After a short period of training, we went into what I can only describe as an “Aladdin’s Cave” of eBay stock at Ashton Gate – a huge mixture of items all waiting to find a new home and generate sales for patient care.

With support from the very friendly and helpful team, Leigh and I soon found our feet and were creating listings within a few hours. The first few months have been fantastic and we both thoroughly enjoy the research and investigation part of the role – What is this? Who made it? What’s it worth?

Personally, one day at Saint Francis Hospice gives me more satisfaction than a whole month in my old job (Banking-boo!). The level of generosity people show in their donations has amazed us both and when you watch what you have listed sell sometimes for many hundreds of pounds, we get great satisfaction knowing that our efforts are helping maintain the fantastic services that SFH supply.

We have found the “Top Sellers” on eBay have been: cameras and video camera equipment, pictures and paintings (especially signed), electricals such as games consoles, laptops, TV’s, any collectables and toys (especially vintage Lego and Playmobil), typewriters, record Players, sewing machines and musical Instruments.

Leigh and I both want to thank Saint Francis Hospice for taking us on, we both love our days listing on eBay and can’t wait to see what’s coming through the door next.”