Today was one hell of a day! The DigitalMaas team got to participate in feeding around 800 homeless and disadvantaged people across Sydney.
“Sydney Homeless Connect provides an annual winter event at Sydney Town Hall where our open-door policy allows people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless to connect with service and care providers to help them move forward.”
It was an early start, 8am we arrived at Sydney Town Hall to register and get all “Apron’d up.” From there we were all allocated a role and were blessed to have been chosen to participate in the restaurant team aka the most exciting team!
We served a Christmas in July themed feast which warmed the hearts up of everyone involved. Whether you were plating up the food or clearing the tables, you could feel the gratuitous energy in the room. We didn’t come across one guest who had a frown on their face! It made everything (the early morning start, the non-stop moving, and cold weather, to say the least 😉) all worthwhile.
Meal after meal, we greeted, served and cleaned with a smile! We were all so thrilled to be a part of an event that does such amazing work. They even had volunteers walking around giving free hugs!
The craziest part was that there’s an array of volunteers from different backgrounds. CEOs, property investors and surgeons taking a day off to give back to the community.
Not only did the event provide food to the homeless, but it also offered dental services, medical check-ups, phone repairs, massages, resume-writing services, counselling, clothes, shoes, and heaps more. Literally a one stop shop for anyone who needed a little extra help.
These are the stats from last years event:
I had the pleasure of speaking to a lady who was in her early thirties and had 2 children under the age of 5. She was eagerly looking for sleeping bags and I pointed her in the right direction. It only took a few seconds to ask about her situation as it was noticeable that she had children and was lugging around a HUGE mesh bag. She shared that she was living “on the river out in Windsor”. She said, “Windsor is the best place to be homeless.” My heart was filled with sadness, but the lady and her children looked completely fine, she was just super grateful they were getting free sleeping bags today.
Being in the Digital Marketing world, things are so fast-paced and sometimes it can get a little overwhelming but today made us realise that we get so caught up in our day to day activities. Sometimes we complain about the little things, “My train was cancelled” or “I missed this deadline,” but imagine a life where your big win for the day was getting a free sleeping bag. What an eye-opener!
We are all super grateful for being able to participate today! It put things into perspective and we believe that we can all make a difference. Whether you just do one good deed to make someone’s day or perhaps you offer your spare food to the next person on the street, spread the love and you will feel as amazing as we do right now.
Here are a few small deeds that you can do to help out:
- If you have leftover food after eating out that you definitely don’t want to take home, wrap them up in a take-away container and give it to a homeless person on the way home.
- If you have an office snack bar/kitchen, give out all the perishable food after Friday (i.e. fruits, bread, milk, etc) to a homeless person on the way home.
- Buy The Big Issue! This newspaper supports homeless people by selling it to them for $3.50, giving them the advantage to sell it on the streets for $7 and they get to keep the profit! So the next time you see the little old lady in front of Wynyard Station selling them, try and buy one from her every week or month.
- Donate, donate, donate! Have a look through your wardrobes and get rid of anything that you haven’t worn or touched the last 8-12 months. Another person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
Big thank you to Andrew, our fearless leader, for being so generous and encouraging this behaviour in our company culture.
To get involved in the next event, you can register here. Sydney Homeless Connect
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