Some of you might be aware that every year I’m very proud to partner with my friends at Kids Giving Back to work with teenagers who access Youth Off The Streets.
Well today, Kids Giving Back hosted its 5th Birthday party at Rough Edges, a homeless community partner in Darlinghurst, Sydney, and I was honoured to MC it.
The event brought together educators, charities and corporate sponsors and the Member for Vaucluse, the Hon. Gabrielle Upton, who praised Kids Giving Back for its important work in the community based on student volunteering – something the Minister felt strongly about from a personal perspective:
“I know from my own experience as a young volunteer, that these experiences create deep connections with community and this is what set me on my path to politics, where I serve the communities in which I live.” – Member for Vaucluse, the Hon. Gabrielle Upton
Indeed today, a key element of the event featured students from regional NSW school, Kandos High, who cooked and delivered meals to homeless people at Rough Edges. before being taken through Kings Cross to explore the issue of homelessness in a hands-on way, through a program called ‘Urban Walk’.
Today, Kids Giving Back announced a new volunteer program called, ‘Food, Clothing, Shelter’ that celebrates diversity and aims to remove existing barriers preventing young people in Sydney’s West from engaging with the wider community. Kids Giving Back, together with community partners Rough Edges and Thread Together, will work with students to create care packages of food and clothing for vulnerable groups such as asylum seekers and the homeless.
GET YOUR STUDENTS INVOLVED
To date Kids Giving Back have partnered with 39 schools across NSW to provide these type of opportunities for students. If you’d like to explore how you might get your students involved with these awesome programs, you can download the schools programme here then drop my friends, and founders of Kids Giving Back, Ruth or Carole a line.
Tell them I sent you! 🙂