Reading Part 3 Activity 1
A helping hand
1 Look at these headings and read about the
charity called Helping Hand. Find the right
heading for each paragraph and write it in
the space.
Pets
Companionship
Shopping
Gardening
What Helping Hand does ✓
Housework
A valuable experience for you
A What Helping Hand does
There are many elderly people in Erdingford who live alone
and find it difficult to go out and to look after themselves. Yet
the majority of them love their homes and want to go on
living in them as long as possible. Helping Hand is a
registered charity that helps such people to live independent
lives in their own home environments. But our work depends
on volunteers, many of them young people, who visit our
clients and help them with the activities of daily living, or just
provide some friendly company for an hour or so.
B Shopping
Helping Hand volunteers help elderly clients with their
shopping trips by going to the supermarket with them and
carrying bags back home for them. For those who can’t walk
very far and who find a trip to the shops is more than they
can manage, Helping Hand is there to go shopping for them.
C Housework
Those who find housework difficult appreciate the help of our
volunteers with everyday jobs like vacuuming, dusting and
cleaning windows, or with practical tasks such as moving
furniture or changing a light bulb. (Volunteers are not
expected to wash clothes or do heavy or dirty housework.)
D Pets
Elderly people with pets may appreciate help, for example
taking a dog for a walk, or taking a sick animal to the vet.
E Gardening
A garden can be a lovely place to sit on a sunny day, but to
keep it looking nice can be hard work. Helping Hand
volunteers help elderly clients by doing some of the harder
physical tasks like digging, weeding and cutting grass.
Instant PET by Martyn Ford © Cambridge University Press 2007 PHOTOCOPIABLE
F Companionship
Some of the elderly clients we help have failing eyesight and
often they like to be read to. Others just enjoy an opportunity
for some friendly conversation or playing a game such as
cards or backgammon.
G A valuable experience for you
What you do for your client is discussed and agreed by you,
your Volunteer Support Officer, and the person you are
helping. You will not be asked to do anything you are not
happy to do. A Helping Hand volunteer can be a trusted link
with the ‘outside world’, helping to keep our senior citizens
independent. But it’s not a one-sided benefit: volunteers
learn so much from their clients’ experience of life as well as
acquiring new skills by taking on the responsibility of a caring
role. As Roy (18) said:
I thought voluntary work would be a matter of doing little
jobs for an old person I didn’t know, and then feeling pleased
with myself because I’d done something good. But it wasn’t
really like that. It was more like a friendship: I learnt so much
from Margaret about her generation, how things were in the
past, and about life itself. And she seemed to take me
seriously, and to listen to what I had to say.
2 Sentences 1–5 about the text are all
correct. Read the text again and underline
the parts of the text that show they are
correct.
1 Some of the elderly clients are able to walk
to the shops.
2 Volunteers don’t always do physical work
for clients.
3 Some clients find reading difficult because
of their eyesight.
4 A member of staff at Helping Hand will talk
to you about your work as a volunteer.
5 Many volunteers find the experience
important for them too.
Sentences 6–10 are all incorrect. Underline
the part of the text that shows they are
incorrect and correct the sentence.
6 To be a Helping Hand volunteer you must
be aged 16–18.
7 Helping Hand runs special homes for
elderly people who cannot look after
themselves.
8 Volunteers need to know how to play
backgammon.
9 Volunteers cannot refuse to do housework
for clients.
10 Roy was an elderly client of Helping Hand.
Follow up
Write a paragraph of about 100 words beginning:
To enjoy a good life, elderly people need ...
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