Harrisdale Piara Waters Toastmasters Help Children in Crisis

During October we spied a poster in the library where we meet, announcing that Carey Baptist College Community were having a book drive in order to donate books to Operation Sunshine WA for their Sunshine Packs and Christmas Appeal.

Operation Sunshine WA is a volunteer run, Perth based charity. Established with the objective of providing a positive impact in the lives of children and young people in out-of-home care, Operation Sunshine’s primary focus is the Sunshine Pack initiative. This initiative quickly extended to support the needs of children and young people escaping family and domestic violence, along with an annual Christmas Appeal providing gifts to children and young people in care and crisis across Western Australia.

What better way could we find to support a community event for 2024. We appealed to our members to bring a book or two to add to our collection throughout November. We were staggered and so grateful for the number of books members donated. We collected so many, we were delighted that we had to find a larger container to hold them all in.

On Wednesday November 20th we left the bin in the library with a note to the Students, Staff and friends of Carey Baptist College. This was a surprise for them when they arrived on Thursday morning. We love surprising people and this was especially poignant, as the call we received to thank us was extraordinary. The emotional call from Mrs. Erin Mazanec, the Literature Specialist in the library, showed us just how appreciative she was to have found the stash. Sarah, our Vice President Membership and Robyn, our Secretary both received calls of thanks and gratefulness. Mrs Mazanec was delighted with the quality and the quantity of the books.

Monday November 25th was the day the donations were presented to Operation Sunshine’s Donation Coordinator, Helen Coles at Carey College. Mrs Mazanec invited us to attend. Sarah was available and we were so excited to be invited to be present. Ms Coles was extremely grateful in her email of thanks. Here’s that email:

“Operation Sunshine are again extremely grateful to the Carey Community for coming together to donate so many wonderful books for children living in out-of-home care throughout Western Australia. By continuing to support our mission to enhance the lives of children and young people who have experienced neglect, abuse or family and domestic violence, the kindness and compassion of this community truly shines through. A huge thank you also to Toastmasters for their very generous contribution. These beautiful books will mean so much to children and young people needing comfort and happiness. Thank you! Thank you for making a difference!” (Helen Coles, Donations Coordinator – Operation Sunshine.)

It was an absolute pleasure to collect these books and it was even more exciting to see the elation this gave. We sincerely hope that this will help children in WA enjoy some precious reading time when their lives are most disrupted.

Many thanks to all our members who contributed books to this drive, your generosity was overwhelming.

If you would like to help in other ways, please visit the Operation Sunshine website for ideas. https://operationsunshinewa.org.au/ I’m sure this is now a partnership we will develop more in the years to come.