#WATWB June – Shelter and Food

Over a year ago bloggers Belinda Witzenhausen and Damyanti Biswas contacted some of their blogging friends about the negativity that invades lives via our screens. They formed a We Are The World Blogfest Group #WATWB. This group posts positive stories on the final Friday of each month.   We are people from all inhabited continents of the world. While coming from many cultural backgrounds and belief systems, we are all united in believing that the power of a good story can change lives for the better. You too, can join.

This month our co-hosts are:

Damyanti Biswas,

Shilpa Garg,

Mary J Melange,

Dan Antion,

and myself.  Please visit their posts and others with #WATWB.

 

This month I have two examples to bring to the fest.

 

The CEO Sleepout

Photo: Vinnies Sleepout website.

The St. Vinnies CEO Sleepout is becoming an annual fixture. While raising awareness and funds for homeless people it also does something else. It gives people in positions of leadership in government, business, Church groups, advocacy groups and more, a glimmer of  an understanding of what it is like to sleep on the streets. From their website

What is the Vinnies CEO Sleepout?

The Vinnies CEO Sleepout is a one-night event over one of the longest and coldest nights of the year. Hundreds of CEOs, business owners as well as community and government leaders sleep outdoors to support the many Australians who are experiencing homelessness. Each CEO Sleepout participant commits to raising thousands of dollars to help Vinnies provide essential services to the people who need them.

Last year, the Vinnies CEO Sleepout raised 5.6 million dollars for people experiencing homelessness.

Donating

directly assists people experiencing homelessness, by:

• funding new initiatives
• ensuring existing homeless services, like food vans and emergency support, continue
• expanding the reach of our existing programs to ensure every Australian can access accommodation, meals, and emergency assistance when they need it.

 

There is some footage on youtube such as this video.  You can also check out the stories by people like

As first time CEO Sleepout attendee Helen Yost braved the cool winds under the Story Bridge in Brisbane for the annual event in June 2017, she was reminded of her past and her own experiences of homelessness.

Now for an excerpt from Juliet Kono’s haunting poem:

Homeless

My son lives on the streets.

We don’t see each other much.

Like a mother who puts white lilies

on the headstone of a dead child,

I put money into his bank account,

clothes into E-Z Access storage

and pretend he’s far away—

at a boarding school, or in a foreign country.

Nights, I dream fairy tales about him…..

Read more here at Poetry Foundation

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Food Sharing ‘Grow Free’

PHOTO: The Grow Free cart in Joondalup has been running for 12 months and is well used by the local community.(ABC Radio Perth: Emma Wynne) Courtesy of ABC news

The Grow Free movement is sprouting.  Emma Wynne, from ABC News, began her report with:

Outside the Joondalup Family Centre in Perth’s northern suburbs, a small wooden cart is laden with lemons, capsicum, celery, black olives, red chillies, curry leaves and parsley seeds.

A sign above the cart (a former change table) reads: “Grow Free — take what you need, give what you can”.

It was set up by local music teacher and mother Kathryn MacNeil a year ago, and is one of numerous Grow Free carts around Western Australia based on a movement founded in Adelaide.

“The idea is to create a place where people can bring their excess local produce, their homegrown produce — it could be food, it could be seeds, it could be seedlings,” Ms MacNeil said.

You can read more here.

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More about WATWB by reading this link from Damyanti Biswas.

 

 

 

 

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