By Sophie Binning
Hyde Park Festival presented by Fuel to Go & Play is a great FREE day out for the whole family, but did you know that all proceeds raised through stallholders, amusements, and donations at the gate, go straight to charities around Perth?
Each year The Rotary Club of North Perth decides on a main beneficiary to donate the funds to, in 2024 this charity is the Rotary WA Homeless Projects. Vital projects helping those who have fallen on hard times within the Perth and Peel regions.
Rotary Homeless Projects encompasses many initiatives including:
12 Buckets, an organisation to support the social and emotional well-being of children who are experiencing disadvantage and hardship, to prevent youth homelessness.
Medical Respite Centre to provide pre and post hospital care for homeless people, the first of its kind in Australia. The benefits are to enable a homeless person to fully recover from a procedure before going back on the streets, address their chronic health conditions, provide pathways out of homelessness, reduce repeat visits to emergency departments and re-admittance to hospital.
Socks in the City, providing clean, dry socks for the homeless. Homeless people struggle to find clean dry socks to wear. As a result they can develop both trench foot and warm water immersion foot. A homeless person with a history of this is 8 times more likely to die in the next 5 years compared to a person who is not homeless.
Driver Learning Supervision, for many formerly homeless young people a driving licence is needed for any job for which they apply. Getting a licence requires passing a test and clocking up supervised driving hours. These young people don’t have access to the usual sources of driving supervision like co-operative parents.
My Home Project, Rotary supports the “My Home” Homeless Housing Project (www.myhomehousing.org.au) which builds villages of small houses for homeless people in WA. The project targets women over 55, who are the fastest growing group of homeless people in WA.
Passages Youth Engagement Hub, a joint venture between the Rotary Club of Perth and the St Vincent de Paul Society, helps marginalised homeless and troubled youth. It acts as a referral centre and ensures provision of services such as “the street doctor”, Centrelink, Youthlink, legal assistance and combating drug abuse.
Eye Contact Photographic Exhibition, a series of 20 larger than life portraits of homeless Western Australians. Each portrait locks viewers with an arresting gaze and with a short-written snapshot of the subject’s experiences - enabling confrontation of the issues they face in life on the street.
Foodbanks: Give A Feed- A campaign to provide a nutritious festive meal at Christmas for the homeless. Meal elements are packed into a Hamper by Rotary and other volunteers, and donors donate a hamper for $30.
Blankets & sleeping bags, several Clubs provide comfort and warmth for homeless people to sleep at nights.
Common Ground Model - Apartment-style permanent supported accommodation for the long-term homeles and much, much more.
In previous years the Club and Hyde Park Festival have focused on charities like SOS who provide furniture and household goods to people who have become homeless through domestic violence or crisis, or our 2023 beneficiary, Path of Hope, who provide safety and empowerment to women and their children escaping domestic violence. Funds from the last year’s festival went directly to helping this cause.
Hyde Park Festival is a volunteer led event, with everyone involved passionate about giving back to the community. You will see our amazing volunteers throughout the event, at the Discover Rotary station, the Information Hub, and manning all entry gates. Our volunteers at the festival gates this year will not only have buckets for gold coin donations, but EFTPOS machines to allow everyone to donate to a brilliant cause and give back to the Perth community.
All donations are highly appreciated, any amount is helpful and goes a long way to help those in your community who are doing it tough.