Friends of the EMC Summer Newsletter

Another year has flown by and the EMC staff and guests are now preparing for Christmas. The Christmas lunch for guests will be held on Monday 19 December. We are fortunate to have generous support from Greenhills Conference Centre who are cooking our food on the day, the Egyptian Coptic Church and Helping ACT who are providing Christmas food hampers, and Share the Dignity who are donating toiletry bags.

It’s an EMC tradition that all guests receive a $20 gift voucher as a present and this tradition is highly valued by our guests. If you are able to donate a gift voucher, please drop them into the EMC between 9am and 2pm on weekdays or 9am and 1pm on the weekend. Our preferred cards are the Woolworths Wish Cards or the Coles Group/Myer Cards as they are redeemable at a great range of shops and our guests enjoy using them, especially at the sales after Christmas.

Jazz in the Garden

Special thanks to Donna Stewart for opening up her garden for us, to Geoff Page and his Charity Jazz Band for entertaining us, and to all those who provided food.

Feel Good Feed

The Early Morning Centre’s Feel Good Feed program provides the opportunity for local businesses and community groups to get firsthand experience helping people experiencing homelessness by cooking a lunch for EMC guests. Or as one group did, you can just get together with some friends and cook a meal.

Our Feel Good Feed program continued during Spring with lunches being provided by Helping ACT, Ray White Commercial Canberra and Edge Advil Iqbal Pty Ltd, assisted by Elizabeth Lee MLA and Mark Parton MLA. The lunch provided by Ray White was served during Anti-Poverty Week.

BBQ lunches

As well as the Feel Good Feed lunches, the EMC notes important occasions by hosting BBQ lunches for our guests. In Spring we hosted a BBQ lunch for World Homeless Day and another for R U OK Day.

Icon Water - furniture upgrade

We recently had the opportunity to upgrade our furniture thanks to funding from Icon Water. We were pleased to meet the community support team and take them around the Centre, showing how their funding helped.

Our guests really appreciate the stylish new tables and chairs which always look clean and fresh. Our old ones were beginning to show their age. Our warm thanks to Icon Water for this support.

Volunteer Christmas Party

Another welcome Christmas tradition is the Volunteer Christmas Party which will be sponsored this year by our much appreciated ongoing sponsor, Canberra Consulting.

The EMC could not function without the help of over 40 volunteers who are rostered to arrive early each morning to prepare breakfast and engage with our guests at the start of each day.

Pets in the Park - cuteness overload!

Pets in the Park has continued its monthly clinics seeing an ever increasing number of animals. The November clinic was very busy with the volunteer vets and veterinary nurses seeing 21 dogs and 3 cats, all much loved friends of our guests.

All pets are welcome however written referrals from the EMC are required to access this service. The final clinic for the year will be on Sunday 11 December. Our thanks to all those who donate their time to ensure this clinic runs smoothly.

Visiting service spotlight:

Canberra Community Law

Our thanks go to the following spring supporters

• Ainslie School P&C Association for more than 5kg of sausages;

• Department of Infrastructure for 70 emergency packs;

• ACTEWAGL for donating money for fresh fruit each weekend for a year;

• Helping ACT for providing monthly BBQ dinners, as well as Feel Good Feed lunches;

• Rotary Club of Murrumbidgee Canberra for donating $1,360 raised from the sale of the Homeless Gnomes at Floriade;

• Greek Film Festival Australia for fresh food;

• Mothers Union Australia Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn for toiletry packs;

• Our young 6-year-old friend and her family who are regular donors of food for our emergency food packs;

• The team from ServiceNow Canberra for their donation of food;

• Rotary Canberra East for funds collected at their Antique and Collectables Fair in August;

• Mobilise Clothing stall with free clothing; and

• Canberra Weekly for an article highlighting the important role of the EMC in Canberra.

For a full list of all our regular sponsors and supporters, many of whom have been involved with the EMC for years, please visit our website. Our warm thanks go to all of them as well.

Christmas greetings

Finally, to all our staff, guests, volunteers and Friends, we thank you for your ongoing support and wish you a happy Christmas and a safe and restful holiday season.