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What a difference volunteers make!

Qualtrics volunteers assist to transform a property for a young person.

A huge thank you to the amazing team of volunteers at Qualtrics for helping us transform a single storey, two-bedroom property for a 19-year-old single mother with two children under the age of two.

Six employees from Qualtrics, which helps organisations improve their customer and employee experience, put up their hands to transform the property as part of their annual volunteering inititiative, XM Day.

Armed with gardening tools and a positive attitude, they participated in a volunteering day, where they assisted in:

  • Painting the living room
  • Moving a new couch into the newly painted living room
  • Pruning and tidying up the garden
  • Patching up a couple of dents in the walls
  • Revamping the kitchen
  • Tidying up the garage and car port
  • Taking rubbish to Kimbriki Resource Recovery Centre
  • Scrubbing the bathroom to remove mould
  • Removing plastic bottles and recycling them

The generous team also donated two car seats for the children, children’s clothes, toys, new towels, new cushions and a rug, and stationery to help the young mother with their TAFE studies.

Doctor Cecila Herbert from Qualtrics also went the extra mile and donated plants from her own garden and planted them in the property’s garden.

Thank you Qualtrics, your team of volunteers have truly made a difference in this young mother’s life and we couldn’t be more grateful! This is why we do what we do!

And finally, a big shout out of thanks to Bunnings Warringah Mall for donating paint, that provided the living room with a new lease on life.

If your organisation or business would like to volunteer with The Burdekin Association, check out our volunteering opportunities here. We’d love to hear from you.

Community Matters

Justene Gordon, Graham Bargwanna and Emelia Weaver of The Burdekin Association at the 2023 Annual Northern Beaches Breakfast Fundraiser

We are always saying how much our community matters to us, especially at Christmas – because we mean it. The Burdekin Association can honestly do so much, because of you.

We’d like to shout out a big thank you to the following organisations and people…

2023 Northern Beaches Annual Fundraiser Business Breakfast

Thank you to the 2023 Northern Beaches Annual Fundraiser Business Breakfast for announcing in November that The Burdekin Association is a recipient of their fundraising efforts. We are so grateful to be one of the three organisations to be a beneficiary! We received $4,000 during the fundraising event.

Addi Road Community Organisation

We are so thankful to the Addi Road Community Organisation, who once again has provided our young people with deluxe holiday hampers, as part of their ‘Hampers of Hope’ program. Last year, 66 of our young people received a hamper. They were brimming with chocolates, gifts, toys and other luxury items. Thank you so much Addi Road Community Organisation!

Palmolive ANZ

It’s amazing the difference that one donation can make! We received a donation of many bottles of lovely shampoo to give to our young people. Thank you Palmolive ANZ.

Palmolive Shampoo

Share the Dignity

Thank you to Share the Dignity. They donated some beautiful handbags filled with essential items, everyday luxury goods and handwritten notes for young women, girls and those who menstruate to feel a little bit of love and hope this Christmas.

Hillsong Church

Thank you Hillsong Church for your generous donation of hampers. Staff from our Youth Services team gratefully received them and the children and young people in our care will truly appreciate the gifts that you have so generously provided. Merry Christmas!

Manly Warringah Sea Eagles

Over the past five weeks, Manly Warringah Sea Eagles sought donations of gift cards for children and young people at Burdekin. We are truly grateful for the numerous gift cards that were donated – often these gifts are the only ones that a young person will receive at Christmas and the joy that it brings is immeasurable. Thank you to our community partner, Manly Warringah Sea Eagles!

Energize Health Club Belrose

Thank you, Energize Health Club Belrose, for donating some amazing Christmas presents for our young people! We are truly grateful!

Our Supporters

We couldn’t do the work that we do without our many generous supporters. We thank you and appreciate the trust that you put into us. We strive to do our very best by our young people.

The house diagram below features our supporters from the 2022/23 financial year.

We’ll be updating this post as more Christmas hampers, goodies and gifts arrive at our head office, to be distributed to the young people we support.

In the meantime, if you would like to give a gift card to a young person this Christmas, you can purchase a gift card from JB Hi-Fi, Rebel Sports, Kmart, Big W, Priceline / Sephora, EB Games, Westfields, Myer or David Jones and email it to us to at: burdekin.admin@burdekin.org.au.

Often these gifts are the only gift that a young person will receive at Christmas and the joy that it brings is immeasurable.

Mentoring Men Volunteer Initiative

Volunteer with us

We are delighted to have entered into a partnership with Mentoring Men to engage male volunteers into our Volunteer Program for our young people. Mentoring Men is a fantastic local charity providing free long-term, one-on-one life mentoring programs Australia wide.

Volunteering

As many of you already know we are big on collaborations and community partnerships here at Burdekin – we believe that together we can make the world a better place – more so than going it alone.

Volunteers play a huge role in contributing to healthier and more resilient communities. Being a volunteer also has positive gains for the person who volunteers, not just the mentee. Being part of a community, making a difference, having fun as well as learning news skills, gaining confidence and meeting new people are all part of the overall experience.

Common goal

With a common goal of making a positive difference to people in our community our partnership with Mentoring Men makes perfect sense. By working together, by sharing our knowledge, skills and resources, we can share the responsibility for achieving this.

Gender disparity in volunteering

With this collaboration, specifically men will volunteer with us in roles like driving instructor, general maintenance, mentoring, program co-ordination, house angel and tutoring. We know that women tend to volunteer more of their time in Australia so we really welcome this wonderful opportunity.

Possible reasons why men don’t volunteer as much as women:

  • They assume it’s just for women?
  • They feel like they don’t have the skillset?
  • They feel like they don’t have time?
  • They feel like their good intentions might be misinterpreted?

Role Models

The truth is that society is crying out for male role models. Steve Biddulph, Parent Educator, Author and retired Psychologist says: “our schools are filled with kids – especially boys who are ‘under- fathered’ and at considerable risk of going off the rails as a result.”

If you would like to know more about our Volunteer Program please visit our pages: Volunteer and Skilled Volunteers and if you would like to know more about our Mentoring Men Volunteer Engagement Initiative, please contact us.

We take this opportunity to formally invite any men in our community to get in touch with us if you would like to volunteer!

Mentoring Men welcome all enquiries for men interested in becoming a Mentor, if you are interested in becoming a volunteer Mentor with Mentoring Men please take a look at what it’s all about.

Charitable community days and in-kind giving

Working Bees at our Inner West and Northern Beaches Properties

Giving comes in all shapes and forms. We want to highlight some of the contributions our amazing community of supporters have generously provided to us as in-kind giving, in other words donating time and goods.

What are in-kind donations?

In-kind donations may be physical stuff like furniture, clothes, necessities (food, toiletries), school supplies, equipment and the like or consist of donations in the form of professional expertise, skills and services such as legal services or property refurbishment, facility management and the like.

Community working bees make a big, practical difference to our work and to our young people – we have some amazing – we mean AMAZING – partners and organisations helping out.

The Property Industry Foundation (PIF) connects us with other organisations all the time to help alleviate child and youth homelessness. These organisations are across a variety of industries providing numerous services and products that will help services like ours to keep youth safe and secure.

Stanmore property working bee with Charterhall and Flick Macqueen Plant Designs

Staff from Charterhall and plants and pots from Flick Macqueen Plant Design helped us with a garden design at one of our Stanmore properties. Charterhall’s website says: “Our team are encouraged to give 1% of their time to support community projects.”

What an amazing ethos and the team did an incredible job. Take a look at some of the before, during and after photos below.

King Living

King Living have been donating the most beautiful lounges from one of their stunning ranges to one of our Stanmore properties. These pieces have gone into new homes for our young people and look amazing.

“We received the beautiful couch and dining table set on Monday which was assembled by two really lovely men. The Burdekin Association is truly grateful for the ongoing support both organisations provide. The houses we find automatically feel like homes with the quality of these items.” Matt, The Burdekin Association.

Bunnings

Ensuring fire safety in our properties is a priority for us and we must say a huge thank you to Bunnings Warringah Mall, who have donated fire safety products such as fire extinguishers, fire blankets, first aid kits and other fire safety accessories to reduce the risk of fire and keep our young people safe both in the Inner West and Northern Beaches.

We can’t thank these wonderful people enough, their commitment to helping us and the phenomenal work they have done not to mention the gorgeous furniture and plants.

BINGO Bins

The people over at BINGO Industries have been a huge support to The Burdekin Association by providing about  $10,000 – $15,000 worth of bins over the last year. The bins are being used to clean up properties….such wonderful support that we are really appreciative of.

We are always saying this but … it really does take a village and we are so lucky to have found ours! Thank you everyone for your precious time and donations.

If you would like to partner with us in any way and help us to solve youth homelessness please get in touch!

Charterhall – LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube

King Living – Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Pinterest

Bunnings – Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube

Flick McQueen Design – Facebook and Instagram

BINGO Industries – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter

Bunnings and Taubmans Paints

Recently the wonderful people at Bunnings Warringah Mall and Taubmans Paints helped us with a very special project – The Burdekin Learning Space. We are thrilled to say that, at a property in North Head, we now have a classroom, therapy room and sensory room. Our young people are going to benefit so so much from this space where specialist education workers will provide trauma informed education. None of this would be possible without the kindness and generosity of community! Read more about our Learning Space and Education Specialists fundraising page here.

TaubmansFacebook and Instagram

The Easter Bunny visited Burdekin

Community support for Burdekin

Where would we be without our supportive community sometimes appearing in the form of the Easter Bunny dropping off bags full of easter eggs.

Our young people were thrilled to bits and we were over the moon by the generosity of Zac Marsh and family of Watts Electrical. Thank you for digging deep and donating all these wonderful Easter goodies. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Community support for BA at Easter

It is the kindness of community, families, businesses and individuals that make the lives of children and young people who have not had the best start in life a little bit better.

We thank Zac and his family, especially these two gorgeous girls for their beautiful gesture.

We acknowledge the Aboriginal people of the Cadigal and Gayamaygal Clans. We acknowledge the Country on which we live, work, and gather as being Aboriginal land.

We acknowledge the lands, waterways and skies that are connected to Aboriginal people. We honour them and pay our deepest respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

We respect their rightful place within our communities, and we value their ancient cultural knowledge and practices.

Aboriginal Flag
Torres Straight Island Flag

We deeply respect that this will always be Aboriginal land and we will honour and follow the first peoples’ values in caring for the Country and for preserving their culture.

We deeply value that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the oldest living culture in the world and we will continue to work with their peoples and communities to ensure their cultures endure and remain strong.