Edmonton PCYC and students join to bring awareness to homelessness
Personal care items donated by the community saw youngsters join forces to pack Care Packages for some of our local homeless
Homelessness is a problem in most communities throughout Australia with more than 105,000 people without a home each night.
Traditionally people see homelessness as a public scourge, but many forget that the vast majority of younger people that are homeless, aren’t actually seen. They move from place to place, couch surfing at friends places, sleeping in their cars or at refuges.
Last month our Edmonton PCYC Youth Management Team joined forces with Woree High School A2B group and challenged themselves to a community sleepout.
For those who are homeless, the simple pleasures of having your own toothbrush, toothpaste and personal care products can be difficult to obtain so the team at the Edmonton PCYC appealed to the community to help donate care packages for some of our homeless people.
Public donations such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, female sanitary products, wet wipes, hand sanitiser, chapsticks, thongs and water bottles allowed the team to assemble 85 care packs that will be distributed by Rosies Outreach Services.
Members from the Rosies team even taught the students how they’ve reused plastic shopping bags to make sleeping mats.
Event organiser, Edmonton PCYC Youth and Community Development Officer Melanie Lizotte-Steponavicius said the event was a huge success.
“It was an opportunity for young people to express and share their ideas and views and to act on issues that affect their lives,” Ms Lizotte-Steponavicius.
“It’s a good way of exposing young people to the harsh reality of being homeless, in a safe and structured way.”
The PCYC Team have expressed their thanks to all those people who donated and supported the cause, some of which included Member for Mulgrave and Queensland Treasurer, Mr Curtis Pitt MP, Coles at Cairns Central, Edmonton and Mount Sheridan, Redlynch Woolworths, Kmart Cairns Central and community volunteers, Tyler, Catherine, Phyliss, Jacinta, Fay, Teresa and Deanne.
Working together for a good cause
Source: Cairns Crime Alert
