









When there are no words to express our enormous gratitude… but we will give it a shot …
We overwhelmed by the amazing community generosity and support shown to Carevan Blacktown and by extension the people we care for, this week… as every week.
So many incredibly generous and kind offers of help and donations coming in as Christmas approaches. Individuals and local communities coming together and collecting tinned food and hamper items for the season ahead… regular allies and supporters and new friends reaching out to us to help others.. we are blessed indeed.
This week we received a huge donation from the Castle Hill Public school community who donated more than an incredible 51 crates (and there’s more in bags and boxes) of tinned food and pantry items. The pictures speak a thousand words really … we had to go a long way back and resort to the panoramic shots to capture it all.
Thank you to our volunteer and Castle Hill teacher Sue, whose lovely initiative this was, and enormous thanks to Jacinda who coordinated it all and then did a weightlifting work out too, with her colleagues and fellow teachers Pip and Libby, helping us load up the van and 3 cars filled to the brim with goodies.
Thanks to the many teachers who put this small miracle together, with an efficiency and precision that would put a Swiss clock maker to shame and huge thanks to the school community at large for this generosity and kindness .. We are overwhelmed by the donation and touched by the collaboration and work done on our behalf .. and can never thank you enough … suffice to say though, that this food will help to support the many, many empty pantries and struggling budgets of those we serve, for months to come, and our gratitude is boundless.
We also had a collection coordinated by another lovely Carevan volunteer ( aren’t they all!) Geetika and the community of family and friends of Just For Kids, Epping. This little centre has donated cans and food items and is equally as fantastic and kind for its BIG heart and generous donation of 4 big boxes .. decorated especially for Carevan by the kids.
This sort of school and childcare activity is, as we’ve said before, especially heart-warming. Engendering in our children and next generations, a sense of social justice & this kind of compassion and care for people among us who are struggling, is an invaluable thing and charities such as our rely on it always.
We CANNOT do what we do without the community’s awareness and support, and we thank you from the bottom of our tin canned hearts
Carevan is the recipient of care and support from many different areas of our community, always. We are, as often said, simply the conduit between a kind community and those in need of its care. This support comes in person or from simply being part of a generous social network.
As mentioned in previous postings, we’ve been the very grateful recipient of boxes of fruit and veg from the local Box Divvys over the years, and thought we’d shine a little light on this super initiative and the aptly named “Kindness Box” which Box Divvy Hubsters and their members donate to the community and to the Carevan family.
Box Divvy’s mission began with a couple of farmers in 2019 on the mid north coast who, working with Western Sydney Diabetes Alliance and NSW Health, sought to “provide quality food, pay farmers fairly and make fresh food available at extraordinary prices.”
By connecting families to local producers, backyard growers, wholesalers from nearby and some from farther afield, Box Divvy facilitates ‘hyper-efficient’ access to nutritious seasonal fruit and veg, making healthy eating affordable and accessible, creating and supporting community connections using environmental and sustainable change to benefit all.
Carevan are not directly involved in the Box Divvy program as such, but have become the fortunate recipients of its community focus and broader care, through a lovely by-product called the ‘Kindness Box.’
The local Hubsters, Zoe at Lalor Park and Raquel at Quakers Hill and their community, generously donate towards the ‘Kindness Boxes’, fruit and veg, eggs and other nuggets of fresh goodness which the Carevan Kitchen team to use in cooking up meals, while Bella Vista’s Hubster Flavia, and her network deliver (via our own lovely Carevan volunteer, Sue) a ‘Kindness Box’ direct to a Carevan family household in need of this nutritious bounty.
A ‘Kindness Box’ is filled with produce not required or excess, but never wasted, or simply donated intentionally by generous community members, for the express purpose of offering this onwards to the community beyond the program’s members, in a lovely anonymous gesture of contribution for others’ wellbeing.
Box Divvy is a wonderful initiative, the boxes are bursting with colourful goodness and nutrition and speak to its mission of promoting wellbeing in others and self, sustainable care for community and more broadly the planet, and we are hugely grateful to be chosen for these boxes chock full of the Kindness they are named for.
If you’d like to explore this program further for your own family, links are below or just take a look at the vibrant pics of these mini treasure chests.
Meanwhile THANK YOU Box Divvy and all your members for your generosity and support of Carevan’s communal table.
Zoe – Lalor Park
https://www.facebook.com/BoxDivvyLalorParkDalray
Raquel – Quakers Hill
https://www.facebook.com/BoxDivvyQuakersHillAcuba
Flavia – Bella Vista
https://www.facebook.com/BoxDivvyBellaVistaIbis