Charity

Our charity work - why do we do it?

Is it not wanting to waste anything? Remember the old saying - "One man's trash, is another man's treasure"

Is it wanting to feel good about helping people, or just our way of giving back?

It could be any or all of the above.

Like most small businesses, we struggle to keep ahead sometimes, which makes it very difficult to be able to donate money to charities when they ask. So one week, after saying no to so many charities, we started to think about what we could do about that, which just happened to coincide with a week that we had taken so many unwanted goods to the tip.

At that time we had been doing some work for a local women's refuge, so we asked them if they would be interested in taking unwanted furniture and household items - they said definitely yes. It has branched out from there.

So from starting off helping one local women's refuge, it has now branched out to assisting the Women's Refuge Movement. They are an amazing group of women and the main recipient of our furniture donations.

1. Women's Refuge Movement

The Women's Refuge Movement is a network of 55 refuges situated across NSW providing support and accommodation to women and children escaping Domestic Violence.

The NSW WRM Resource Centre manages

The NSW Women's Refuge Movement
The NSW Women's Family Law Support Service,
The Orana Far West Safe Houses Project
Regularly providing advice to government on policies and programs to improve responses and outcomes for women and children who are experiencing domestic violence.

This Resource Centre works closely with the sector to ensure that it can actively and effectively represent and advocate for its member refuges and the women and children they support. Visit their website at wrrc.org.au

We also support Wayback, which is an organisation who, as the name says, assists people with help, support and accommodation when they are getting their lives back together after taking some wrong turns and making some bad choices.

2. Wayback Ltd

Wayback Ltd is a charitable organisation established in 1969 by Dr Stella Dalton AM to provide treatment for those experiencing significant social, legal, health and family problems associated with their use of illicit drugs and/or alcohol.

A distinguishing feature of Wayback is its emphasis on the human factor of addiction. Wayback is adamant that every patient needs to be treated as an individual, and adheres to the established research that reveals people with addictions have a higher rate of relapse when they have little support.

Wayback offers a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program based on harm minimization with both residential and non-residential options available. A total of 31 residential can be accommodated in fully furnished premises at the 9 Wayback houses situated in the Western Sydney region.

We support other local community organisations that assist people in need and that might be by donations of furniture or if we have been able to sell donated items we can assist with either food or money

3. Hunters Hill Ryde Community Services

Hunters Hill Ryde Community Services (HHRCS), is a local not for profit community neighbourhood organisation. Providing Home and Community Care (HACC) programs; Emergency Relief for those individuals or families experiencing short term financial crisis; and information, referral and advocacy. The name of the organisation reflects the local area of service provision -

Hunters Hill, Woolwich, Putney, Tennyson, Ryde, North Ryde, Macquarie and West Lane Cove.

Our mission: To support and assist older people and those with a disability and their carers, and those who are socially isolated or experiencing financial disadvantage in our local community

Our address:
42 - 46 Gladesville Road,
Hunters Hill NSW 2110

Ph: (02) 9817 0101
Fax: (02) 9816 5462
Email: hhrcs@bigpond.com
Hours of operation: Mon - Fri: 9.00am - 4.30pm

4. Christian Community Aid

Christian Community Aid strengthens the communities it serves through effective and relevant based programs based on its Christian heritage of reaching out to all who are in need.

5. And finally our newest recipient – ASCA...

who support adult survivors of childhood abuse. This is a truly amazing organisation and we are so very proud to be associated with them.

ASCA is a national not-for-profit organisation which works to advance the wellbeing of people and communities affected by child abuse. It runs programs for the more than 2 million Australian adults surviving child abuse as well as their supporters and the health care professionals who work with them.

ASCA operates a 1300 information/support line - 1300 657 380, a comprehensive website www.asca.org.au, produces a monthly newsletter for members/subscribers, a quarterly e-health for health professionals and delivers workshops for survivors and education and training for health care professionals around Australia. The long-term legacy of child abuse and the needs of adult survivors have long been a taboo topic in our community. ASCA's advocacy work is progressively breaking down the stigma and shame of child abuse and ensuring that adult survivor's find the help and support they need to live healthy integrated lives.

Dr. Cathy Kezelman
Chairperson
asca: Adults Surviving Child Abuse

Website: asca.org.au

Mobile: 0425 812 197

Even though it is quite a bit of extra work sometimes, it feels so good when we have a support worker bringing someone into the warehouse to pick out some much needed goods and watching the look on their face or when we are able to contribute in some very small way financially to other groups.

Each of these organisations do amazing work and most get very little recognition and if we can help, just a very small bit, then that makes the extra hard work, really worth it !!

It really makes us think, that although we don't always have everything we want (does anyone?), we really have most things we need, there is a big difference. We are blessed with a roof over our heads, reasonably good health and family that we share happy times with, so we are the lucky ones and if we have some way of helping people that might not have what we sometimes take for granted, then we are more than happy to continue doing what we do.

Our customers are so very generous and we meet the most wonderful people so we are again luckier than some.