Wyndham food relief bus service gets a funding boost
BY LERISSE SMITH
Wyndham City Corps’ Hunger Buster bus has received a boost in its food relief service to the local community thanks to a bunch of tradies.
More than 300 tradies from Lendlease recently raised $9000 for the Melbourne corps’ Red Shield Appeal campaign.
The funds will go towards the operation of the big red bus plus other service delivery projects to help support the local community each week.
Corps Officers Majors Catherine and Phill Abram said receiving such a generous donation was a shock.
“I am absolutely gobsmacked,” said Phill. “It’s not every day we receive such a large donation. It will make a significant contribution to serving the local community. We are very grateful.”
Lendlease's involvement with Wyndham started about 18 months ago when they saw the Hunger Buster bus at the station. Last year, they conducted an Easter raffle for the corps, raising some funds, and also provided food hampers and toys for Christmas.
Lendlease tradespeople then visited the Wyndham Corps and Doorways Program for a day and voluntarily helped clean the Wyndham Doorways and corps site.
Lendlease engineers, office staff, and tradespeople assisted Wyndham with various tasks, including gardening, building steps, building a screen around the shower trailer, fixing ceiling tiles in the church building, washing windows, painting and driveway maintenance work. It is part of the company’s ethos that staff undertake a community workday and visit different community groups.
Later that day, Phill brought the Lendlease coordinators to the Doorways office. They asked how best they could support the Wyndham community members. After some discussions, Wyndham’s Doorways Coordinator Grace Nnajieze was told their tradespeople would donate to The Salvation Army Wyndham. In the first week of April this year, Phill informed Grace that Lendlease tradies had raised more than $9000.
The Lendlease coordinators recently invited Grace, Phill and Wyndham City Ministry Assistant Tim Kite to visit the Lendlease office so they could present the donation to them. Rosita Faatau and Tara Abram from Wyndham City were also in attendance. Lendlease Site Foreman Dai Davis presented Phill with the donation.
