Shaneela Chana

The optician - seven years of volunteering

I found out about Crisis at Christmas through a charity called Vision Care for Homeless People. I started off as a service volunteer, which meant giving eye tests to Christmas guests.

For me it's like a day at work, we have all the facilities to do a thorough test, but because of the variety of people you're meeting and the atmosphere in the building, it feels different. The gratitude you get for simply doing your job is overwhelming. 

Christmas volunteering is amazing because you come across such a diverse range of patients, people with really high prescriptions and all sorts of difficulties. But on the positive side, you can really make a difference. You get guests with quite high prescription who may have been going around with blurred vision for some time but not realising. So when you can show them what they could see otherwise, they can be blown away by. It can be life changing to have your eyes tested and realise that you could actually see a lot better with the help of the right prescription glasses.

I now volunteer at Crisis Skylight every Monday night where we run free eye tests and glasses for Crisis clients.

I think the satisfaction you can get out of volunteering is incredible. It's always good giving something back. Unfortunately the people that we may see for some reason don't feel they can go to an optician on the high street because a lot of the Crisis guests aren't registered to the NHS, they're on the fringe and probably feel excluded from that provision. It's such a basic service that everyone needs so this is an opportunity for them to get direct access.

A lot of people go overseas and give their skills to help developing countries. But don't forget what's on your doorstep and what an impact you could make here.

Apply to volunteer at Crisis at Christmas