CENTACARE staff rallied relatives, friends and neighbours to receive and pack hundreds of kilos of fruits and vegetables two days before Christmas.
The effort gave countless homeless and disadvantaged in Brisbane a brighter festive season.
Kim and Jeremy Andrews of Daily Fresh Produce made the donation to clients of Centacare’s South West Brisbane Community Options Social Inclusion Program (SWBCOP).
“(We packed) 223 individual serves of fruit and vegies for people who are experiencing financial and social hardship,” said Centacare’s Kerri Lanchester.
Based in Mt Gravatt on Brisbane’s south, SWBCOP assists clients to “improve their options for greater inclusion in society”.
“Being excluded from participating fully in society is not just a problem of poverty or deprivation,” Mrs Lancaster said.
“Our role is to value and respect their decision by providing supports which promote a quality of life and independence for the individual,” Mrs Lancaster said.
This year SWBCOP will expand its outreach “to respond in greater detail to the ever increasing number of elderly and younger people with a disability who are sleeping rough within Brisbane and the surrounding areas”.
Their DOCS project (Direct on Street Care) will care for “the invisible and forgotten homeless”.
For more information or to become a corporate sponsor of SWBCOP, contact Tony Proud (social inclusion program manager) on (07) 3422 0152 or Kerri Lanchester (service manager) on (07) 3279 0477.
