ONE young Hospice of the Valleys’ volunteers has been given a special award for his hard work for the charity.

Dale McCarthy, who is 21 and lives in Waunlwyd, received his certificate for 1,000 hours of volunteering from the Gwent Association of Voluntary Organisations (GAVO) recently!

He was presented with the certificate by Hospice Chief Executive Helen Rees.

Dale is the son of the Hospice’s volunteer co-ordinator Justin McCarthy, and he started voluntary work with the Hospice two years ago.

Now Dale has spoken about how much he enjoys his voluntary role, working on the Hospice’s delivery vans three days every week.

‘I was a student at Ebbw Vale College doing a music course, but I only did a year,’ says Dale

‘I really wanted to do some voluntary work, then my father suggested I work on the Hospice van. I liked it straight away – I have felt really comfortable in the role.

‘It is heavy graft, moving furniture and other items to and from the charity shops, but we have a really good time on the van – we have a laugh and a joke!’

Dale works with two other volunteers on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, several hours each day, so he has notched up the 1,000 hours required for the award very quickly.

‘I have seen relatives of ours having treatment from the Hospice so there is a lot of meaning behind the work,’ Dale adds.

‘The furniture we take to the shops makes a lot of money for the charity – so the work is 100 per cent worthwhile.’

He added that he was very pleased to receive the special award from GAVO.

Chief Executive Helen Rees added: ‘We want to congratulate Dale on his award – the first of our Hospice volunteers to be given this certificate by GAVO.

‘We would like to thank him so much for all the hard work he has done for the Hospice during the last two years.

‘We really couldn’t manage without our team of Hospice volunteers, who carry out thousands of hours of work, free of charge, every year.’