We’re only a quarter way through the year and we’ve been so busy already! Thank you to all our volunteers and supporters for your efforts in helping vulnerable members of our community.
The year started with us winning 2 of the 5 awards at Bayside City Councils Australia Day awards ceremony: Community Event of the Year - for our covid comfort packs for residents in Bayside's not for profit aged care homes & children fleeing domestic violence. Our founder & president Deb Brook won Bayside's Citizen of the Year " In recognition of outstanding community services through the establishment of Bayside Community Emergency Relief supporting communities through the bushfires and Covid-19 relief."
Packs for Men and Women Fleeing Domestic Violence
We started by finishing off our 200 emergency packs from last year for men and women fleeing domestic violence. These packs were initially set aside in case of a bushfire crisis but redirected once that threat had passed. Enormous thanks to our many donors and volunteers for making this possible.
Glen Eira City Council Grant
We completed two mammoth packing sessions and delivered 115 childrens packs and 65 adults packs to The Orange Door thanks to a generous grant from Glen Eira City Council. The 115 packs are for children fleeing domestic violence and contain items including stationery, toys, toiletries and activity books and other essential items all in a handy drawstring bag to hold their possessions. These children often flee with only the clothes on their backs so these packs are vital.
A big thank you to our wonderful volunteers for putting these packs together!
A Huge Delivery to Wayss
We recently delivered another 142 comfort packs for children fleeing domestic violence plus 54 packs for women and men to Wayss.
A big thank you again to everyone for this great start to 2021!
In Other News
Congratulations to Margaret Walker for being chosen as a finalist for the Community Hero Heimann Memorial Award! Margaret was nominated by Bendigo Bank’s Highett Community Bank Branch for her outstanding contribution to Bayside Community Emergency Relief from our inception.
In February, at a celebration at the conclusion of their massive aid relief, Neighbourhood Watch 3193 recognised our contribution to their shipping container efforts for the Cann River & surrounding communities impacted by the 2020 bushfires. In March we were also asked to fill approximately half the final container that was due to leave in 5 days time. Our community rallied once more and saw massive donations so desperately needed by the 196 families still living in caravans since losing their homes in Jan 2020’s bushfires at Cann River.
And last but not least, thank you to Tim Wilson, Federal Liberal Member for Goldstein, for inviting our founder, Deb Brook, to a morning tea honouring some of the 2021 Australia Day Honour recipients. Deb was awarded Bayside Citizen of the Year and Tim presented Deb with a 2021 Goldstein Certificate of Achievement .
Amongst all this we've had sewing teams helping with our bags, the community making comfort cards, huge donations of goods from Officeworks Highett & Bunnings Moorabin as well as from Mums Supporting Families in Need and some fabulous community members. We also received a generous & unexpected donation from Amcor whose Moorabin branch chose us as the local charity they wanted to support. We also gave away 10 limited edition local & frontline heroes medal giveaway for our 1st birthday. All of this and more!
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