August 2018
We now have a dedicated webpage for the Kitchen Pack Project, accessed directly from the Glebe Society home page, where you will be able to quickly check the list of items we need, drop-off details and how to organise a pick-up.
Extraordinary support from our members has ensured that our project is unequivocally viable. With the project launch, we received a massive amount of good quality recycled goods as well as cash donations but, equally important, there has been a steady stream of recycled goods since then. Aside from salad and mixing bowls, we currently have enough stock to provide packs for the Elsie families going into self-contained accommodation for at least the next six months.
Our stock position is not an embarrassment of riches – rather, it is an opportunity to expand the project to others who, as part of the process of re-building their lives, move into their own home. Since we also have stock that is not ideal for family packs – sets of crockery or cutlery for 2 or 3, small frypans etc – we are focusing our expansion on those who need single’s packs. The first expansion phase is to supply the men moving into self-contained housing from Rainbow Lodge, another innovative and long-lived Glebe facility. We have delivered one single’s pack to Rainbow Lodge, after we found they had just secured an additional housing place and a man had moved into it within the week.
Once the supply of packs to Rainbow Lodge is firmly established we will evaluate our stock position and, if feasible, investigate other groups we could supply. One possibility is to work with a not-for profit organisation that helps older women relocate from temporary accommodation (usually boarding houses) to self-contained housing. For all these people, like the Elsie families, our packs will make a difference both materially and as an indication of our community’s support.
UPDATE (July 2021)
The highly successful Kitchen Starter Pack Project has now been brought to a close. Since the end of 2017, we have supplied 80 packs to clients leaving Elsie Women’s Refuge and Rainbow Lodge for independent living in social or community housing.
The Glebe Society is very grateful for the support of its members and their friends who have provided their used kitchenware that formed the basis of the packs, as well as financial and other volunteer support since the start of the project. Special thanks goes to Diane Hutchinson for her dedicated effort over this time. Her closing report on the project can be read here: https://www.glebesociety.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Kitchen-Pack-Final-Report-June-2021.pdf
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