We’re Moving!
Most of you have probably heard the news by now, but if not…
The whispers are true! Helping Hands Mission will soon have a new home - we’re moving from Airport West to… Airport West!
Finding a new home hasn’t been easy.
We take our commitment to supporting this community very seriously and when we learned that our lease at Fullarton Road would be coming to an end, our Board of Management began a search to find us a new home in the area.
What we knew was:
We needed to find somewhere we could continue to run our Community Pantry and Material Aid Programs, as there are many hundreds of families currently relying on these services each week
We needed to stay in Melbourne’s northwest region, where our amazing volunteers and clients are largely based
Our new site needed to have great access to public transport, as many of the people who come to us do so without access to a car
We ideally wanted a site that would accommodate both our Fullarton Road shop and Gaye’s Vintage shop in one place, and…
We’d love a huge car park!
Our new home is in McIntosh Street, Airport West. It’s well serviced by public transport, with both buses and trams running past it; it’s big enough for us to accommodate everything we do here at Fullarton Road and Gaye’s Vintage shop, and the carpark is huge – and it’s concreted!
We have a mammoth task ahead of us. We need to:
Raise enough money to fund the construction of a new warehouse and Community Pantry on the site
Turn an old warehouse into our brand new op shop
Physically move all of the stock we have at Fullarton Road and Gaye’s Vintage shop
Keep all our shops running and supported during this time, as they raise the money for everything we do as a charity, and
Ensure there is no disruption to service for the 700 families who currently rely on our Community Pantry each week
So how can you help?
Next month, we will officially begin our fundraising campaign. There will be lots of ways to support us, whether it’s online donations, putting your loose change into our donation boxes at our front counters or participating in one of the events we have planned. Of course, you can always donate to us at any time, either in person or via the donation button on our website – just send us a DM if you need assistance. There will also be lots of calls out to our supporter base to help with the more hands-on part of our move, so stay tuned.
Our goal is to relocate around Christmas time, but as with any big move there are lots of parts to the puzzle so we will continue to provide regular updates to everyone via social media and in store. For now, we’d love you to keep shopping in our shops and tell your friends and family about our move.
We want you to come on this journey with us - we know it’s going to take our whole Helping Hands community to make it a success!