Happy New Year to our incredible community! In amongst the obvious, 2020 was the year that We Care grew to help more children that ever before – over 1,400 children were helped thanks to your incredible support, be that donating items, supporting us financially, or volunteering your time. At a time of huge uncertainty, we were genuinely able to count on our village, you, to help out local vulnerable children – this fills us with enormous gratitude and definitely makes us feel ready for what ever 2021 may throw our way!
We’ve got BIG goals for 2021, it’s our 5th Birthday so we’re thinking up some ways we can all celebrate together. And we’re reaching the ‘scale up’ phase of charity land – so we’re making sure we’ve got really strong foundations as a charity so that we’re ready for the next few years and in the best position possible to help more and more vulnerable children. We’re looking at how we can leverage our community partnerships to offer our services to more children, how we ensure we’re sustainable as a charity (making sure the $ come in to cover our limited expenses), and making incremental improvements to our service offering. And we want to grow our community! We’re always touched at how excited you are to support We Care and we’d love even more people like you to join our village – but we’re not a very well known community group, yet… And any ideas you might have to help us do this, PLEASE reply and let us know – we’re very keen to hear from you!
Our Back 2 School Appeal has launched
This month, we’re aiming to help local kids start school on the front foot by providing Back to School essentials. School is a big part of helping children break the cycle of poverty and build a better life, but the costs are a tremendous stress on many parents and children.
With the financial impact of Christmas still lingering, many families can’t provide their children with the Back to School basics they need. From pencil cases, drink bottles, uniforms, backpacks, socks and shoes – the list of things to buy can seem endless and relentless. As well as putting together requests based on community donated items, where needed, we will purchase brand new items such as backpacks, drink bottles and lunch boxes that really need to be brand new.
One of the families includes a 14 year old girl and her 12 year old brother who are currently living at a friend’s house due to significant safety issues within the home. Centrelink are yet to complete the relevant forms for financial assistance – so they don’t have the money to be able to purchase school shoes or essentials for school. Their case worker contacted us and asked “I was hoping you would be able to help with this”.
Our volunteers are back this week and starting to prepare packs of community donated items that will help local kids start school on the front foot – yet we can already see we’re short of a number of items. So we’re asking for your help to make a donation and change this.
Please donate today: https://back-2-school.raisely.com/
Together, we can make sure these kids have their school supplies ready to go on day one.
Behind the scenes at We Care
We’re always looking at how we can improve our volunteer facilities – and one thing that was desperately lacking was a nice large space to make coffee and tea.
We moved some things around, installed a few flatpack cupboards, and got some additional bench space – now more than one volunteer can make a cup of tea at a time!
Why we care
We recently received this feedback from a Case Worker:
A***** was ecstatic when I took EVERYTHING over to her. She hasn’t been able to afford moving her belongings from up north, so the kids went nuts over the toys and clothing, it was like Christmas. They live near Maitland, and it gets cold there. A**** was so happy to have more warm bedding for herself and the children.
I wish you could see their faces as they receive their bags of goodies. Honestly, you and all of We Care make a huge difference to families lives
Drop off locations re-open next week
Our drop off locations have all been closed to We Care donations, and they will re-open from Monday 18th January. Please check in with them first to double check their opening hours – CLICK HERE to view our drop off locations throughout the Coast. And, please sort through all of your items and make sure you remove anything that has any holes or stains – we only distribute clothes that will delight the family that receives them. If you can wash or wipe down anything you’re donating, this makes a big difference so we can re-distribute your items to vulnerable children even quicker.
You might not get to meet or hear from the families you’re helping – neither do we normally – however please know that we constantly hear wonderful words of thanks and sincere gratitude from the Case Workers we work with. You are having such an incredible impact to these children’s lives.
Warm regards,
The We Care Team 
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