Volunteer spotlight: Maureen Solomons

Jewish Care Scotland’s Honorary President, Maureen Solomons, is one of our organisations’ longest running volunteers, with decades of experience under her belt! Originally, Maureen volunteered for Age Concern Scotland for around three years when in 1986 her sister-in-law, who was already volunteering with JCS, recommended she get involved.

Reflecting on the start of her volunteering journey: “I came along and had my interview with the late Freda Jackson, who was an amazing lady, one of the original ladies. And that was it! The minute I walked through the door, I knew it was different from anything I’d done before. I just knew, and I never looked back!”

In the early days Jewish Care Scotland was still referred to as the Glasgow Jewish Welfare Board and had yet to relocate to our well-known Giffnock location headquarters. Maureen reflects that although the old building on Coplaw Street was old and could be considered a bit “higglety pigglety”, everyone loved it and saw it as a second home for the community and the surrounding areas. Volunteers would be able to reach people from the Gorbals all the way through to Shawlands before we took on the big move in 1996 when JCS moved in next to Macabi in May Terrace, Giffnock.

Over the years Maureen has grown and changed alongside JCS; from performing in community cabaret events each year at Chanukah time to helping to establish and coordinate her fellow volunteers during the Covid-19 pandemic, Maureen is an integral part of Jewish Care Scotland. Ten years ago, Maureen has the honour of speaking at Glasgow City Chambers for Jewish Care Scotland’s 150th anniversary.

After many months of social distancing in 2020, JCS realised just how different the social care landscape was looking. To tackle these changes a group of volunteers, spearheaded, by Maureen alongside Lesley Roles and Avril Levy, boldly initiated the first ‘Welcome Wednesday’ drop-in café to promote the communities’ wellbeing and allow them to connect with one another! To this day Welcome Wednesday is still going strong, boasting 30 – 50 attendees per week. This would have simply not been possible without Maureen Solomons.

Reminiscing on her sweetest memory of JCS, Maureen prides herself on the achievement of her volunteering cohort who won the Queen’s award for volunteering. To commemorate the award a Royal Lord Lieutenant visited the centre to present the volunteer team with their honorary award. Over the years Jewish Care Scotland has had countless lovely memories of Maureen and simply couldn’t choose just one!