Hawkesbury’s Helping Hands marks 15 years in Australia
Charity organisation Hawkesbury’s Helping Hands in the Hawkesbury region, northwest of Sydney, Australia, has marked 15 years of work. It was founded by Linda Strickland and her daughter Cassidy after they heard that someone was looking for food in rubbish bins near their home in Windsor, ABC News Australia reports.
The mother and daughter then prepared food at home, packed it into plastic containers and delivered it to homeless people staying in a local park. Over 15 years, the initiative has grown into a warehouse from which hundreds of people in the region receive food parcels and essential items.
Help during disasters
The organisation, which has about 20 volunteers, helped the community during droughts, the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, and also responded to natural disasters. The Hawkesbury region experienced the 79-day Gospers Mountain bushfire in 2019–2020 and five major floods in 2020–2022.
Strickland said that during the first flood in February 2020, she was asked in the middle of the night to set up an evacuation centre. The organisation already had inflatable mattresses, pet supplies and snacks. During its busiest periods, usually around Christmas, HHH distributes between 20 and 30 pallets of food a day, received from supermarkets and food relief organisations.
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Support for working families
According to Strickland, an increasing number of recipients are working families who do not have enough money to cover food and rent or mortgage payments at the same time. She also noted that requests from residents of the Hills district, which is often considered affluent, are growing the fastest.
Strickland said the organisation had not received direct government funding and operates thanks to community donations and business support. At the same time, federal MP Susan Templeman said that in 2024 she provided HHH with a federal grant for volunteers, while food relief providers that supply goods to the organisation received at least $20 million in federal funding.
HHH is preparing for future emergencies: the warehouse stores boxes containing inflatable mattresses and sleeping bags. The organisation has also received an adjoining warehouse space and, on hot days associated with a possible El Niño phenomenon, plans to set up a rest area with fans and sofas in its warehouse.
