All hands on deck needed!

On Wednesday, we opened our doors at 9.30 am and needed all hands-on deck straight away. There were already five people waiting. By just after 10, we had seen (or were in process of seeing) sixteen people, including four families. Often at St John’s Care you need to hit the ground running. Our volunteers and staff are brilliant at doing this. We call it ‘grace under pressure’.

The Centre was well and truly full with children playing, people enjoying a coffee and morning tea. All the while our volunteers and staff were ensuring that everyone was being assisted with their needs.

Our volunteers work like a well-oiled machine - not missing a beat and still managing to provide care, support, assistance and information in a cool, calm and collected manner. This makes everyone feel comfortable. As you are aware, it is difficult to walk in the door and asked for food and assistance. We are so grateful that so many feel welcome to come to St John’s Care where our amazing, caring volunteers put the client first.

Today we gave out food, clothes, local bus tickets, a bus ticket for a family that needed to go to a funeral out of town, help with utility bills and gave out a tent to a rough sleeper. Steph, in her role as Community Worker, has begun to help clients with issues that require them to be supported in a more holistic manner.

In July, we saw approximately 290 people. Without our supporter and donor base we couldn’t do the amazing work we do to help our clients. Because of the generosity of so many who responded to our Winter Appeal, we are now in a far better financial position than we expected. Your generosity has significantly increased the assistance we can give to people coming to the centre.

We now have a full staff team here at SJC: Sarah Murdoch – Executive Officer, Jason Haines – Programs Manager, Steph Stephens – Community Worker and Tracy Creber - Finance Officer. We are all excited and feel blessed to be here and look forward to the opportunities that present.

SJC wish list this week: 1 litre olive oil, peanut butter and pasta sauce.

The SJC Team