Love Button on Tour: The Power of Volunteering

The Love Button team has been on a heartwarming journey across Europe, spreading love and support in each city we visit while on our world tour with Coldplay.

This month, we had the privilege of going to Helsinki, Munich, and Vienna!

Bringing Love and Support to Helsinki’s Most Vulnerable

Hurstin Apu is one of the most respected organizations in the area. They help the less fortunate by distributing clothing and food to the locals. The Love Button team joined them on two occasions, seeing two different sides of their work.

They’re known for their annual Christmas event, but this year they wanted to give people a summer celebration. With the kids on summer break and the amusement park being too pricey for some families, we held a fun fair of our own. Bounce castles, cotton candy, games… you name it, we had it. Hurstin Apu stood side by side to help run the event.

Later in the week, we visited their distribution center, which provides food to the community weekly. During our visit, we served over 1,500 people from all different walks of life.

Our volunteers also worked with Vailla Vakinaista Asuntoa ry and joined them in their fight to combat homelessness in Helsinki. With multiple locations across the city, one even on an island, they act as a stepping stone for people facing hard times. They offer housing, guidance and love. We joined their residents at two locations. Our days were filled with conversation, peace, knowledge, joy and delicious food.

Distributing Love and Nourishment in Munich

With 28 distribution points across Munich, Münchner Tafel supplies high quality food to 20,000 of their guests every week. That’s 180 tons of food rescued and reused to help those of lesser or no income. None of this would be possible without the 160,000+ volunteer hours they receive a year from their primarily volunteer based team.

The Love Button team visited the Münchner Tafel distribution points and helped distribute to over 1,000 of their guests. There were smiles all around as people left with full bags and full hearts!

Serving the Community in Vienna

In Vienna, our journey of kindness continued as we volunteered with two remarkable organizations, Die Tafel Österreich and VinziRast.

Die Tafel Österreich has been serving Austria since 1999. Annually, they support over 36,000 people with the number growing each year. With 245 food donors, they are able to rescue over 1,000 tons of food from waste and redistribute it across the country. All of this is made possible by the 17,132 hours that their volunteers have donated. Our Love Button volunteers added to those hours and helped distribute food to some of their members.

Our volunteers then worked with VinziRast who doesn’t just feed their visitors, but they also give them a place to sleep. Known as an emergency shelter, VinziRast has 50 beds that their visitors can use for a month maximum. Our Love Button team visited the shelter and held a dinner & breakfast service for their visitors.

Like many organizations, both rely heavily on volunteers. If you have an extra hour or 2 a month, we encourage you to donate your time to serve! There are thousands of organizations that can use your help. Service is loving.

Feeling inspired? We invite you to join us on our world tour as a volunteer or consider donating to help continue our loving mission! Your time and effort can help spread love and compassion, uplifting communities and creating positive change.

Here are the next locations and tentative dates of the cities we will be stopping by:

October 30 – November 3: Melbourne, Australia
November 6-10: Sydney, Australia
November 13-16: Auckland, New Zealand

Sign up today at lovebutton.org/volunteer and become a part of our heartfelt journey to transform the world with acts of kindness.