We hit a pretty awesome milestone today. 5,000 followers on our Facebook page!
This whole charity started from Facebook. I got my first ever donations from a post in a local community group. I started asking for more donations, and posting to show where the donations were going. Before long I started my own page. Originally called Ridgy Didge Assist, we have come a long way since then.
I've always been so amazed at the compassion, kindness and incredible generosity of the locals in our area. I remember when Noi and I would go through all the donations ourselves, and I was in tears at the incredible donations we received.
Still to this day we stop every now and then and say, "wow, look at this" when we see donations. Today alone I saw 3-4 people drop off donations at our place, and at the stand we gave our a bunch of brand new tracksuit and hoodies, winter socks, winter slippers and much much more.
I'm grateful to each and every one of you for putting your trust in me, and I promise to keep fighting the fight and helping as many people as I can. Don't worry, I'm not burning out. If anything my passion is growing. I wont give my haters the satisfaction of bowing out now. I know a lot of them are banking on me not being able to sustain this. They are in for a long ride!
It's rather fitting that I stopped by on my way home from the stand to visit Carol Hanson and Robyn Jordan. They have been supporters of our charity from day one, and I have regularly dropped off bread left over from the bakery at ivory street since the first weeks of doing my stand. It's always lovely to see them, they are both in social housing and like all pensioners, money is tight. I lost my mother about 20 years ago, everytime I visit them I imagine it would be what it's like to visit my mum if she were still here.
Robyn is a big Elvis fan, so we had him in the background, and had to show the cute Elvis bear she had!
The stand was pretty busy today, we gave out a lot of clothes and food. It was a good haul from Coles.
Thank you to Peter, Toni and Bradley for volunteering and helping. Thanks as always to Chris for picking up the food, dropping off to the stand as well as the pantries.
I got to thinking today. I said we should be protesting about the state of homelessness last night. I think I'm the guy to arrange that. I called Norman McGillivray, my friend, and founder of Beddown (no longer associated with them), and discussed the idea. I had a delivery of 40 tents from Anaconda yesterday, as well as the 30 tents from BCF I have here. Maybe if we put up 50 odd tents outside state parliament, that might get their (and the medias) attention? 🤔
Please see in the comments a link to a petition Norm is running. Everyone should be signing and sharing, we need urgent action now for emergency accommodation facilities that are fit for purpose. ❤️❤️❤️
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