Don Griffiths - volunteer 20 years

National Volunteer Week 18 – 24 May 2020

National Volunteer Week (NVW) is the annual celebration to acknowledge the generous contribution of our nation’s volunteers. The theme for National Volunteer Week 2020 is 'Changing Communities. Changing Lives'.

Don Griffiths has been a Justice of the Peace since 1970 the past 20 of those years at Council. As a manager in the public service he was required to witness documents such as statutory declarations and affidavits. “I was nominated by my Chief Executive,” he says. “There was no selection panel back then.”

In recent years all Justices of the Peace were reviewed and Don had his tenure renewed by the Governor for a further 10 years. He works at the Adelaide Magistrates Court every Wednesday morning and is now on a reserve list for council. “I did a regular stint on Thursdays with Council until about five years ago,” Don says. “As the grandchildren grew so did our responsibilities as grandparents,” he says. “But I still do two or three shifts a month.”

Clocking up 20 years as a volunteer came as a surprise to him. “I wasn’t counting and it just snuck up on me!” Don gets much satisfaction from helping people in the community and does not intend to stop any time soon.

In December 2018 he completed 18 years as volunteer at the (now closed) Daw Park Repatriation Hospital.