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!!
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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.
We are blessed with a growing and glowing team of amazing people who give off their time, skills, and a smidge of muscle power.
We have just held the first training session for 2024 one welcomed many new Green t-shirters for 2024 – Lots of generous people looking to lend a hand and a couple of hours to caring for people in need in our community
Welcome all!
From the clothing and kitchen teams at the ‘coal face’ on a Tuesday evening, to the busy people working work behind the scenes each week. We have an amazing community of green angels doing all manner of tasks, to ensure the Tuesday evenings come to be and that the work to keep the wheels turning, the fridges stocked, the clothing shelves stacked and the vehicles running carries on week after week.
SO many dedicated people working after work hours and on weekends over the past few months in particular ~ sorting mountains of clothing and household donations, collections & drop offs, home deliveries, baking and cooking nutritious huge pots of food, to create our communal meal and food for the week to follow.
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
) ~ 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, allThank you to the local organisations and small businesses who ‘volunteer’ their resources, connections, financial support, donate food, send along employees, referrals or just share the word through the community ~ many of you never meet the people we serve on your behalf and the generosity of this is not lost on us or diminished in any way by your not being at the serving tables ~ we know who you are and value you all the more for community kindness.
Volunteers are the soul of any charitable organisation and ours is no exception ~ Thank you Carevan Blacktown all-stars – new recruits and old hands alike ~
We can’t do our thing without you
Our next volunteer evening will be in April, so if you’re keen to come on board, get involved or help out in any way ~ just get in touch ~ email~ info@carevanblacktown.org.au
Carevan Blacktown Xmas Thank You
T’was the night after Christmas ~ or something like that and all across Carevan Blacktown the fluoro green elves were a little too tired to come up with a rhyme ~ and are taking a couple of weeks off for some family, friends and seasonal festivity instead.
We have packed, stacked, stocked, wrapped, collected, stored, sticky-taped, loaded, cooked, carved, sliced, and served our last hamper, toy, gift and meal for 2023.
Christmas, like no other time of the year, brings kindness from the rafters and generosity from every nook and cranny of our wonderful community.
From donations of a single tin of ham to a child collecting money to buy crates of groceries, from handmade toys to handwritten notes, hand packed hygiene gifts to truckloads of drinks, bakers rolls to the last number and fresh fruit delivered to the door.
From angelic singers to photographers, electricians to security, people come to lend us their skillset or their time, while still ( many ) others work their Christmas magic from afar and are never known to the hundreds they care for
All these wonderful humans and community connections form our amazing support network, which ensures that there is a special dash of sparkle sprinkled liberally across the Carevan Blacktown community at Christmas .
Christmas is a magical time of family, friends and community and this is never more obvious than the Carevan Blacktown Christmas evening and Xmas morning BBQs and 2023 was no exception
We thank you all
‘Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.’
Carevan Blacktown at WEXPO 2023
Carevan Blacktown were afforded the honour of an invite to WEXPO 2023, held at the Blacktown Workers Club on 5th September 2023.
We joined many other exhibitors in promoting and exploring the activities of the local community, including some of our friends, neighbours and supporters – including Caroline Allen of the ACU Blacktown campus, who’s students attend Carevan Blacktown to volunteer as part of their community placement requirements, Merven Virueda from the Parramatta Community College, new friends and volunteers Gay and Kerry from Inner Wheel Blacktown, neighbour & local artist Danielle RG of ‘Stitches Collection’ and our wonderful friends & supporters of The Workers Lifestyle Group.
We chatted with many passers by and our CEO Andrew Scott was interviewed by the ABC for a grab of radio airing on radio national the following day.
A successful day of connection and networking with our wonderful community on which we rely so heavily.
There’s a little highlight of us on page 43
Homelessness Week 2023 “It’s time to end homelessness”
August 7 to Sunday August 13 ~ Homelessness Week 2023
“It’s time to end homelessness”.
For a week each year the community focuses on the multifaceted dilemma of homelessness and home insecurity~ seeking a solution ~ a resolution~ in this our ‘lucky country’.
For those for whom this precarious and vulnerable position is the reality of life, the week will stretch beyond the week and the solutions and resolutions are out of grasp.
Carevan Blacktown joined the Workers Lifestyle group for the recent CEO sleep out event – a cold and wet June night, giving us the briefest of glimpses into the uncertainty and insecurity of of “living” with homelessness – a state of being for so many, and a multifactorial and multi-faceted reality.
We had tents to sleep in and a mattress on the ground, a meal provided, entertainment and the surety of a warm shower, a bed, somewhere to brush our teeth and a home to go to the next day .. For those affected by homelessness this is not the case ~ no home and no security… no warm comforts to help them endure the nights or any reassurance about a meal or a safe place to sleep the next night.
There is much to be done .. and lots of discussion this week especially, about rising costs of living and housing availability and the fact that many people are struggling to meet the basics of life. Carevan helps where we we are able and we are open to all .. it’s a warm room, company and a bowl of sustenance plus a little extra goodie or two provided by our amazing community and the Carevan Blacktown family.
It’s a little bit …. but its not enough
The facts;
On any given night, 122,494 people in Australia are experiencing
homelessness (ABS Census 2021).
One in seven people experiencing homelessness are children under 12 (ABS Census 2021).
23 per cent of people experiencing homelessness (almost one in 4) are children and young people between 12 and 24 (ABS Census 2021).
One in five people experiencing homelessness are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people (ABS Census 2021).
Homelessness is not “rooflessness”. Only 6.2 per cent of people without a home are sleeping rough. The majority of homelessness is hidden – people in crisis accommodation, rooming houses, insecure housing,
overcrowded dwellings or couch surfing.
