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Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful break over the Festive period and managed to enjoy some of the warm weather.

After a huge year here at Geelong Mums, our team had a much-needed break. We are now all back on board and eager to make this year another outstanding one!

It has already been a very busy January, with lots of pram and car seat drop-offs to the warehouse. We know the Christmas break is a popular time for families to have a clean out and we really appreciate you thinking of us and bringing in your goods to be rehomed. Please do keep the goods donations coming – we are always in need! You can find more information on desperately needed items in this newsletter.

In addition to goods donations, we are also extremely grateful for the financial donations that many of you make. Appeals like the Festive Appeal we contacted you about in December are vital to raising the money we need to help the thousands of vulnerable babies and children who desperately need our service. We were thrilled to hit our target for the Festive Appeal with your amazing support – thank you from the whole team!

However, the cost of living increases we are all experiencing have hit us hard too. We rely heavily on support from amazing financial donors to keep our doors open. This year will be another challenging year with many of our costs also increasing.

Whether you support us with your valuable time, goods to rehome or a financial gift (or all three!) you are vital to the success of Geelong Mums.

It takes a village to raise a child and protect the planet – thank you for being part of ours.

Warm regards,

Ruth Holdaway MBE

Chief Executive Officer

Festive Appeal Success!

We cannot thank you enough for supporting our Festive Appeal! We were overwhelmed with the number of donations and messages of love that we received. We set a very high target for our appeal and to our delight, over 1,100 donors from all over Victoria gave a gift and made that target a reality. We just can’t believe the level of amazing support from everyone, thank you so much for answering our call.

Your support in action!

Social worker Lisa from the “Healthy Mums, Healthy Babies” program reached out to us recently for support for a family she is working with.

The couple, and their daughter, are asylum seekers and have no family support here in Australia.

They have a little 3-year-old daughter and Mum is currently 33 weeks pregnant. Neither parent is able to support the family financially currently and they don’t meet the criteria for government support, causing high levels of stress and an uncertain future.

This beautiful family, expecting their second child, was in critical need of help. Thanks to your unwavering support, we were able to provide them with the essentials – a cot, mattress and a car seat. We were also able to make sure they had a bundle of clothing for both the 3-year-old and the baby on the way that would last them 12 months.

The delivery they received brought instant relief to the couple. Now they can concentrate on raising their toddler and preparing for their new arrival. Something that would not be possible without your support.

Spare time on your hands? Come in and help

We're reaching out to our amazing community because we urgently need your help! We've received an incredible number of generous donations of pre-loved baby items in the last month, and we now need hands and people power to process them, especially prams and car seats.

Maybe you have recently retired and are looking for something to fill your day? Or the kids are back at school and you have some free time? Whatever the reason, we would love to hear from you.

The process to volunteer with us is very simple:

Email us at [[email protected]] and tell us you are interested.Come along for an induction.Volunteer!

You can come as little or often as you like: once a week, once a month, once a year or whatever works for you. Feel free to stay for an hour or all day. We are completely flexible to suit your commitments.

Every pair of hands contributes to our common goal of supporting families and babies across Victoria. We couldn't do what we do without your invaluable help!

Working hard in the office and no spare time?

Photo: The great team from Aussiewide Financial Services helping out in our warehouse.

Bring your team in for a day of Corporate Volunteering! We're ready to host groups of up to 15 people Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 2.30pm. Bookings are now open for 2024.

Shake up the office routine and make a day of team bonding more meaningful. Your company can make a remarkable difference in the lives of babies and children in need across Victoria.

Discover how your company can become part of our efforts to help babies and families in need by sending us an email – [[email protected]]

We can't wait to welcome you and your amazing workmates!

What do we need right now?

If you are having a clear-out we would love to rehome your goods. These are our most needed items right now:

We ask for all donations to be in excellent, clean condition because we hope that anyone who receives a Geelong Mums package feels like they have received a gift that has been prepared with care and thoughtfulness. If you are not sure about what we can accept please read our guidelines [[link removed]].

Don’t have anything to rehome? No problem – you can still help!

Donate $165 today and give the gift of travel – help provide a car seat to children who need one to keep them safe while traveling from place-to-place.

Fancy a good read?

Last November we released our 2022-2023 Annual Report and we think it's a great read – even if we say so ourselves!

Packed full of information about Geelong Mums, St Kilda Mums and Eureka Mums, including the impact we have had, a spotlight on our amazing volunteers and our vision for the future. We even have some wonderful stories from the community, like this one:

“Ararat Maternal and Child Health holds the relationship we have with Geelong Mums in high regard. The service they provide in giving families safe equipment such as prams, cots, clothing and footwear, safety equipment and toiletries gives families in need dignity, freedom and independence. Providing these goods to them can often bring financial relief for other household essentials and can be life-changing for some families. Living in a rural town with a lack of public transport can bring its own set of challenges but Geelong Mums providing things such as safe prams can allow families the freedom of leaving the house.”

-Brooke and Therese, Ararat Maternal Child Health

It was a tough year across Victoria, with the increasing cost of living, and this is especially true for the families we have supported. Thanks to you, we were able to reach 20,132 babies and children right across the State with the essential items they need to survive and thrive. And in doing this we have reduced, significantly, the amount of waste going to landfill and damaging our planet.

Grab a cuppa and have a read [[link removed]] through all the incredible things we have achieved together.

Everything we do is in pursuit of our vision:

Share more. Waste less. Every child thrives.

Achieving these goals requires money – so we need your help. If you’re doing okay, please help a family who isn’t.

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110 Balliang Street,

Geelong South VIC Australia Geelong Mums would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands we work on across Victoria and pay our respects to their elders, both past and present and to their children and young people, who are our future elders and caretakers of this great land.

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