Ask Ash Kasibante what he actually does on a shift at the Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland shop in Partick, and he grins.

"Everything!" he laughs.

That covers it, more or less. Sorting donations out the back. Steaming a jacket before it goes on the rail. Ringing up a fiver's worth of paperbacks for a regular. Chatting to whoever walks through the door on Dumbarton Road on a Saturday afternoon. The 23-year-old Software Engineering student at Glasgow University has been a fixture at the shop since the summer of 2021, and he is, by the charity's own reckoning, one of its volunteering heroes.

He is also, for our money, the sort of quietly brilliant young Glaswegian the city does not make nearly enough fuss about.

From lockdown boredom to a second family

Ash, who lives in Maryhill, first started looking for something to do during the pandemic. "I was studying but there wasn't much else to do and I was really bored," he says. "I started to look around online for opportunities in my area and came across CHSS."

Four years on, he is still there most weekends during term and through the university holidays, and he has picked up a second role as a member of the charity's Health & Wellbeing Working Group for good measure.

What he did not expect, he says, was the people.

"My volunteering experience wasn't what I expected," Ash says. "I didn't realise that I would be working with so many people and become friends with people of all ages and backgrounds. There is always someone around to chat to or to hang out with after work."

There has also been an education of a different sort. "Working in the store has also given me an introduction to music from the sixties as it is always playing in the background. It's really grown on me."

A Partick institution

The CHSS shop on Dumbarton Road is one of those places every West End regular walks past without quite clocking how hard it works. Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland is the country's largest health charity, and the network of shops and boutiques across Scotland is the financial engine behind its advice line, community support services and peer-support groups for people recovering from stroke and living with chest and heart conditions.

In Partick, that work is done by a rolling cast of volunteers — students, returners, retirees, new Glaswegians — who between them keep the till ringing and the rails full. The shop has long been known locally as something of a mini United Nations behind the counter, with food and stories swapped across shifts as often as stock is sorted.

Ash has slotted into all of it. "I haven't convinced my friends from university to join me in volunteering yet," he admits, "but they have visited the shop and take an interest in what I do. I think they like to see the place where I spend so much of my spare time."

Volunteers' Week — and why it matters

His story will be one of many raised across Scotland during Volunteers' Week, the UK-wide celebration that runs from 1 to 7 June 2026 and is led north of the border by Volunteer Scotland. Young volunteers like Ash are a particular focus this year, with organisers keen to show that community work is not just the preserve of the retired.

CHSS, which relies on thousands of volunteers to keep its shops and services running, is unambiguous about what people like Ash mean to the charity: without them, the lights go out.

Ash, for his part, is not going anywhere.

"Volunteering is really important to me and has given me a lot," he says. "I'm really committed to CHSS and hope to work with the charity for a long time to come."

Next time you're on Dumbarton Road, pop in. Say hello. Buy a jumper. There's a decent chance The Kinks will be on.