Gill Carver runs shops for HIV charity Wandsworth Oasis.
“If you give people a chance, nine times out of ten they pay you back tenfold,” says Gill Carver, and she should know.
I’ve never met someone before who’s given so many people a second chance. And not just any people: former convicts; drug addicts; alcoholics; – the list goes on.
With a list of known associates like that you could be forgiven for thinking Gill, 53, was a solicitor, but she actually runs charity shops for Wandsworth Oasis, an HIV supporting charity. The interesting thing about Gill, however, is not where she works, but rather who she works with.
With experience from the NHS, working with people recovering from drug and alcohol abuse, she noticed that most people were turning back to drugs or alcohol after their treatment. So, Gill started looking into why this happens and came to the conclusion that they simply had nowhere to go.
“It’s loneliness more than anything,” she said, “and if they go back to their homes, old patterns get repeated.” That’s when she started taking on people in recovery to volunteer in her shops and when she met Tony.
In genuine modesty, Gill spends much of our time together speaking about other people. But when she mentions Tony I could clearly see how much her first success story means to her. In the six years Gill has known Tony, she’s helped him learn to read and write, and helped him attain a birth certificate, passport and bank account.
“He now has the odd holiday,” she adds.
People in recovery often don’t have much money to spend, so the Oasis charity shop down the road from Springfield Hospital is usually the first port of call after they’ve been discharged. With her previous experience, Gill could spot them easily enough in the shop. If they became regular shoppers, Gill would try to recruit them saying, “You want to volunteer in here because you’re in here more often than I am.”
After their initial hesitance, it’s not long before Gill has them in the shop tidying the racks, vacuuming, polishing, cleaning windows, sorting and pricing stock, slowly building their confidence and working their way up to the till. Some of them even run other Oasis shops now.
“In my mind I’m running two charities. One gives people a second chance. And one helps people with HIV,” she said.
Gill rattles off a long list of previous volunteers that she’s helped get back on their feet: a teacher is now back teaching; many have gone on to work in sales in various shops; two previously un-employed volunteers are now employed by Oasis. She’s helped volunteers in recovery find work as plasterers, painters, electricians, decorators and carpet fitters. Something that’s come in handy as they all bring their skills back to help out in the shops, fixing things here and there.
“They feel as though they have to pay back somehow, through helping,” she says.
So, what does ‘charity’ mean to Gill? “I’ve had a young man come into the store looking at suits saying ‘I can’t afford it’,” she said. Gill asked him for five pounds and to return to pay the difference if he landed the job interview he was headed for. The next week he was back. She says they always come back.
As we conduct our interview in the latest Oasis shop – mid-way through preparations for the grand opening on Friday – I notice Gill’s building-work stained clothes, clearly indicating that she is a hands-on, hard-working store manager.
As if reading my mind, she explains that putting so much into the charity cost her her marriage. Gill insists she’s better off now and has met someone else since who also likes helping people.
“I wouldn’t change what I’m doing now, I love it. Every morning I get up I look forward to coming here,” she said.
“When you hold out an olive branch to someone, saying, ‘come and work here,’ you see a little light come on in someone. That’s the little light I like.”
I find myself wondering what makes Gill different from other people. Why does helping people give her such a kick? When I put this to her she replies in her typically modest way, “To me I’m just me. I don’t think I do anything special.”
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