Carevan Christmas 2024

High Tea and frivoli-tea at Carevan Blacktown

Council Visit

We were very pleased to welcome along to Carevan Blacktown, Cr Brad Bunting, Mayor of Blacktown City and Colin, to join in our Tuesday evening service and see what we do each week first hand.. and, just as we do with all our “volunteers” , visitors and anyone willing to hold a serving spoon, fold some clothing or set up hall tables … we put the gents to work ~ and they did a sterling job 🏆

Thank you for your interest, enthusiasm and support of our service and work.

We have long enjoyed the support of Blacktown City Council and can’t do what we do without this important and special relationship.

We are grateful for all the council’s support our work and the work of local charities of all kind in the community we care for together.

We cannot do it alone and we thank you for your assistance~ from the hall booking team who make the use of the hall available and possible behind the scenes, to special event support, like Christmas Hamper distribution to the simplest of caring gestures ~ the serving of a bowl of food for someone in need.

Come visit with us anytime – you are always welcome at the Carevan Blacktown communal tables ~ we’ll have serving spoons ready and waiting 🍝

Vote for our very own Westfield Local Hero Nominee 2024

Our very own CEO and hero Andrew has been nominated by a couple of community supporters for the Westfield Local Hero program

We know what a local community champion he is and we need your votes to see that other’s know too.

Jump onto the link and vote away 💚

Lots of worthy competition and community care and work out there to have been chosen from and we are very proud of our CEO, his nomination and shortlisting.

💚

https://www.westfield.com.au/mtdruitt/news/1bYDeKZfHmbnUD3XbEyhgF/local-heroes-2024?utm_source=local-heroes-org&utm_medium=owned-other&utm_id=a5282

Thank YOU

THANKS to all the people who purchased, gathered and delivered warmth and kindness this past few weeks in response to our winter appeal. We have received knitted, fleecy and woollen kindness in all forms and fashions this past month, and we are so very grateful – and a whole lot warmer for the love.

There are so many kind people involved in this fantastic response and we send out a big collective hand knitted winter THANK YOU to you ALL – most sincerely from the bottom of our furry hearts & on behalf of all those you’ve helped to warm up !!

Tuesday evening just as we were locking up the hall for another week, a gentleman arrived at the hall door ~ he’d come by push bike to see a friend in the area but hadn’t made it before becoming unwell. We called an ambulance and sat and waited with him on the stairs, wrapped him in the beautifully knitted blankets we had been donated and gave him a new sleeping bag.

Rake thin and homeless and ‘living’ in a local train station stairwell for many months~ he did not complain about his life at all ~ in fact the only thing he actually asked for was a song request on the iPhone of one of our volunteers – he wanted to hear Charley Pride’s “Hard Time Will Be The Best Time” he sang along while we remaining volunteers waited with him for the ambulance to arrive. Then off he went with the lovely gentle paramedics to get medical attention he needed and, thankfully, a couple of nights in a warm bed – he made sure those blankets and the sleeping bag went with him too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOVVfVCjqaM

When people receive support from us, they thank us, but it is our amazing community who quietly work behind the scenes to support us ~ YOU deserve the thanks !! Knitting, donating, baking, cooking, food collections, financial support and community connection of all types. It is YOU who deserve the thanks – and so we thank you (and our amazing green volunteer army) for helping us to keep the wheels turning to deliver care where it’s needed most.😘

And finally ~ Thank you to our awesome volunteer Jasmine and to Jo and the Street Side Medics team who came along a few weeks ago to administer Fluvax to members of our community who hadn’t yet had the opportunity to get vaccinated and wanted to. What a wonderful resource you are.

Carevan Blacktown’s green ‘machine’

In extra exciting news, we have decked out our truck with a bright beautiful decal thanks to a generous grant from Maddocks 

We are enormously grateful for the fabulous background artwork by local artist DanielleRG and to the ever patient, knowledgeable and professional Paul, Sandy and the team at Rae’s Graphic Signs for guiding us from concept to truck panel!

We LOVE it and are so proud of it.. it is a wonderful ‘vehicle’ (literally) to promote our Carevan Blacktown’s service and that of the groups who made purchase of the much needed the truck a possibility in the first place ~ The Workers Lifestyle Group and the Masonic Lodge Blacktown Kildare 

Thank you all for your amazing support and for making our green machine a reality

Carevan Blacktown Good News Story

A good news story

Living ( or sometime simply existing) very close to the poverty line means going without, sacrifice and hardship and services such as ours help simply by providing a little gap filler – Whether it be a meal or two to allow for pennies saved to pay for kids school needs, petrol for the car or an electricity bill – whatever we can help with, we do.

We rely in turn on the goodwill and enormous generosity of the community which donates to Carevan Blacktown – meals, clothing, household goods and so much more, so that we can be a presence in the community and pass on this much needed care to people in need – and there are so many people in need – People who find their way to us and so many who don’t.

Carevan Blacktown welcomes all who attend without question, criteria or cost. We do not question why patrons attend our services, we simply understand that if people are coming to join us it is because they are in need of support – food, clothing, company or all of these.

We recently received a referral from Centrelink for a patron in need of food and general support for herself and her family of young children, while finding their feet, a home, a job and safety. A refugee looking to establish a new home and life in Australia, this patron has escaped the turmoil of her previous life.  Much of what this patron needed was beyond our capacity to provide (sadly, we can’t provide jobs or houses) but we can provide practical assistance with the basics and we did. 

We sourced and delivered furniture and furnishings to her new home in a small house which was secured through the ‘regular’ channels, enabling this lovely hard working mum to establish a new safe place for her family and herself, where once not long before, was uncertainty and insecurity.

We provided food supplies ~ basics like fruit and veg so she could continue in her cherished role as mother, cook, and sole carer for her children ~ preferring not the prepared meals, but whatever raw ingredients we could provide, fruit and veg (from Foodbank, Box Divvy kindness boxes and the Carevan Blacktown kitchen and food supplies) so that she could make the children’s meals herself from scratch  – taking care of whatever was in her capacity to control, leaning on support such as Carevan Blacktown’s only for that which was necessary.

This patron received regular deliveries and care, was able to reach out to us if in need of anything and did so with dignity and gratitude for anything they received, never asking nor taking more than she and her family needed.

Nothing was taken for granted and we know anything that went to this home was needed and cared for ~ respectful of its origins from someone, unknown to her,  in the community donating items to help others – We act simply as the conduit of kindness between these two points.

On delivery of meals, groceries, furniture – anything- to this new happy home- our volunteer (usually our very own CEO and delivery man – Andrew) would be invited in to share a meal or a chat. Recently this lovely patron let us know that she has secured employment – a role to bring income and support and one which accommodates her children’s needs. It means this patron will not need the weekly support anymore, a happy outcome of course but a little sad to say goodbye ~ although we know its not goodbye, as this family are now our friends and part of the Carevan Blacktown community.

Such a lovely story of how Carevan Blacktown can (and did) help – we are available for people in need any time and pass on the care we receive to people in need of this love and support, for a brief time while they find their feet, or as they become part of our community of support, connection and friendship… hopefully both.

“A small moment of helping others can make a big impact”

Carevan “Baketown”

What are Carevan volunteers made of?
(We know what they are made of!)
Sugar and spice
And everything nice

Thank you Carevan Blacktown volunteers, family and friends for generously giving of your time, baking skills and BBQing expertise this weekend.

We are the very grateful recipients of many crates of food and grocery items collected by our green team in conjunction with the Blacktown Ponds Lions Club Inc.(thank you Espie & Joe) This goodness will go straight into grocery hampers on Tuesday evenings and is lovely community care and involvement ~ so many generous people among us – donating a tin or two or a trolley load ????

Our tireless team then got busy baking and BBQing on Sunday to raise much needed funds to keep the wheels turning and the lights on at Carevan B’town HQ ~ what better way then to raise precious funds by turning our hands, spoons and tongs to sugar pots and sauce bottles, making lunch and afternoon tea, sweet treats and savoury delish for the local community at Bunnings Rouse Hill. ????

We have some seriously good bakers among our amazing volunteers, families and friends ~ onion carvers, sausage flippers and slice makers – with all kinds of dietary needs and tastes catered for – Our Carevan ‘Bake-town’ team sold vegan cake cupcakes at one table and salty, saucy sausage sandwiches across the way at another ~ winking cakes, pretty pink slices, mars bars treats, biccies, savoury and sweet ~ and so much more – thank you all ????

Thank you all – food collectors, bakers and BBQers – we can’t do our thing without you and your generous donation of time to help others is nicer still than the cakes and sausages – and that’s saying something!!
????

Lastly – Thank you to Dom and the Rouse Hill Bunnings team – lovely people all ~ these are fun, proactive community engagements for our charity and our volunteers ~ A simple yet super way to raise funds to support people in need.

We are truly grateful to everyone ! ????

Happy Carevan Blacktown Easter

Happy Easter to all our Carevan Blacktown community and beyond.

A long weekend of family, friends and chocolate ~ a little break to relax and renew.

We will be running a Bunnings BBQ on Saturday 30th March serving up the best sausages sandwiches in the Bunnings BBQ business… AND to add to the special magic that is the Easter weekend ~ we will be holding a cake stall as well

 We will be selling sweetness galore made by our wonderful Carevan Blacktown bakers, with added ‘sugar and spice’ from our super friends at The Kings Langley Public School. Our wonderful supporters ~Sandra and Anjali, have sent out a call for some community bakers in the school community to take a rolling pin and some cake mix~ on Carevan’s behalf ~ and we will be provided with lots of deliciousness to sell as a result of this generous community’s efforts.

Bunnings BBQs are critical fundraising for Carevan Blacktown, as they are for so many charities – each and every weekend around Australia  ~ They are fun interactive and proactive days, which offer us the chance to give a little something back for the funds we make, rather than just hoping for grants and donations.

The cake stalls are a ‘sweet’ addition to these important days proving, more often than not, to be irresistible to the passing public and in turn, a great boost of much needed funds.

Thank you to our baking stars ~ to all the treat makers and home bakers behind the scenes ~ our own volunteers and most especially, the special school community angels who have made cakes and goodies with kindness and care to support our charity ~ we hope the Easter Bunny is especially good to you all this year!

Special thanks to Anjali and Sandra & the Kings Langley public school community and as always to all the Carevan volunteers who will come along on their long weekend to run the Bunnings BBQ and the cake stall

~ lovely bunnies, all~

Thank you for your support

Carevan Blacktown Volunteering 2024

Thank you to all our wonderful Carevan Blacktown volunteers.

One such quiet green achiever delivers a ‘kindness box’ of fruit and veg, donated by the generous members Box Divvy Bella Vista, each Friday to a different recipient each week~ One of these recipients is a single mother of four, starting over and re-establishing a home here in Australia ~ She and her family, grateful for the wonderful community initiative that is the ‘kindness box’ ~ simple in its concept, but truly invaluable for a family struggling with loss, displacement and huge change – a community connection and kindness of immeasurable value through this lovely act of anonymous generosity.

We have generous folks dropping by to help with sorting, putting up shelving, doing electrical work (saving us money and a zapping) ~ packing, unpacking, and packing again ~ gym workout without the fees.   People dropping by to help without request or requirement of thanks, payment or even acknowledgement ~ you are the very essence of the Aussie volunteering spirit and showing kindness for others through actions and we thank you, all