Past Community Grant recipients

Dunghutti Elders Council (Aboriginal Corporation) RNTBC, NSW

The Dunghutti Elders Council Gurrgiyn Gurrgiyn Rangers program

The Dunghutti Elders Council Aboriginal Corporation (DECAC) is creating a management plan for the Macleay River in NSW in collaboration with Traditional Owners and the local Gurrgiyn Gurrgiyn Rangers.

We're pleased to be supplying the council of Elders with a $20,000 grant to fund environmental consultations, community workshops, and restoration projects to improve water quality and native vegetation in the region.   

Rotary Club of Kempsey West, NSW

Kempsey Science and Engineering Challenge

The Science and Engineering Challenge is a day-long competition designed to provide Year 9 and 10 students with a positive experience in science and engineering.

We're pleased to be helping the Rotary Club with the introduction of its new program in Port Macquarie, ‘Deadly Science’. This program nurtures students' curiosity in science and engineering by creating engaging challenges where groups of 32 collaborate to solve problems, fostering teamwork, sparking imagination, and potentially inspiring students to pursue careers in these fields. 

Hunter Region Working Women's Group, NSW

Aboriginal Women's Circle

Our grant for the Hunter Region Working Women's Group (HRWWG) went towards creating a 10-week workshop for 20 First Nations women.

Many of the women attending these sessions may have experienced or are currently experiencing family and domestic violence, mental health issues, relationship challenges and lifestyle risk factors.

The workshop provided a safe space for these women and enabled HRWWG to build trusting relationships with them.

Echuca Neighbourhood House, VIC

Food for the Soul

Echuca Neighbourhood House is well known to the Echuca community, having provided essential services and programs that positively impact various groups facing social disadvantages for more than 30 years.

The impact of its community meals program 'Food for the Soul', which we supported, affords community members an opportunity to reach out for support, advocate for themselves, build confidence, and learn about other available services.

Christian City Church Indooroopilly Ltd, QLD

Dinners at a local domestic violence shelter

Christian City Church in Indooroopilly’s grant will help them support adults and children who are survivors of family and domestic violence, as well as those experiencing homelessness.   

Our funding provided essential equipment and supplies necessary for delivering the group's services, including its monthly dinner services that offer a safe and private environment where individuals in these situations who may feel displaced, isolated, and alone.  

Welfare Rights Centre, NSW

First Nations Community Centre Legal Support & Workshops

Welfare Rights Centre is a small community legal centre specialising in social security and family assistance law.

They put their grant towards building a First Nations Access Program to develop culturally appropriate and effective training opportunities and resources for First Nations community workers navigating Centrelink.

Eat Up Australia, WA

Fruit for hungry schoolkids in Perth

Servicing nearly 900 schools across Australia, Eat Up works to address child food insecurity by delivering school lunches for disadvantaged kids who would otherwise come to school with no food from home.

Research shows that Australian children, especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, often do not consume enough fruit and vegetables.

Our grant ensured Eat Up could include fresh fruit in their lunch program for schools across Perth through the rest of the school year.

ECHO Enpowering Services Community, QLD

Extension to Emergency Room

ECHO Empowering Services offers neighbourhood housing, aged care, emergency relief, and various other services to several local communities in Far North Queensland. Our funding helped them build an extension for their emergency relief room to accommodate more food and supplies.

EMMAUS Community Inc, WA

Trade Experience Training

Emmaus Community offers a place to call home for adults with mental health challenges. Its social housing model provides a supportive, community-based home environment with shared meals and regular events. They put our grant towards a new solar battery and heat pump system installation.

Empowered Women in Trades, QLD

Trade experience training

Empowered Women in Trades (EWIT) exists to create an inclusive culture of gender equality for tradeswomen. We committed this grant to help them fund a three-day program for women in Outback and Central West Queensland, two regions with high levels of female unemployment.

Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Women's Shelter, NSW

Installation of battery for existing solar system

The Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Women’s Shelter (HKWS) offers safe emergency accommodation and support for women facing homelessness and domestic violence. We donated funds for HKWS to put toward a 15kWh solar battery installation and additional upgrades to help them keep the lights on in case of grid failures.

Leading Youth Forward Inc, WA

Big Day Out 1 & 2

Based in Claremont, Western Australia, Leading Youth Forward (LYF) provides mentoring and group activities for at-risk teens in school years 7-10. We provided a grant to help fund their duo of ‘Big Day Out’ events introducing the teens to key life skills in partnership with mentors.

Lefevre Uniting Church Taperoo, SA

Building community with the disadvantaged

The Lefevre Uniting Church Taperoo is located on the Lefevre Peninsula in South Australia. We provided them with funds for their food centre's community coffee shop to encourage conversation for the lonely and vulnerable people who may otherwise be disconnected from the local community.

The Shoreline Foundation, WA

Traineeships for First Nations Peoples

We continued our support for previous grant recipient Shoreline, a group offering educational and employment opportunities for First Nations students. This round of funding went towards supporting two Shoreline trainees at Perth Zoo.

The Shoreline Foundation, NSW

Expansion of program to Perth — First Nations traineeships

Shoreline is known for its school-based traineeships (SBT), offering educational and employment pathways for First Nations students. They used our grant to expand their SBT program to Western Australia, funding traineeships for two Clontarf Aboriginal College students.

Rottnest Foundation Inc, WA

Rottnest Woodland Restoration and Expansion project

The Rottnest Foundation, dedicated to protecting the habitat of Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) in Western Australia, put its grant towards revegetation of the island’s woodlands. Alinta Energy employees based in Perth were also able to participate in tree planting as part of the project.

Live to Tell Your Story Inc, WA

Djinda Ngardak 4 WITS project

Based in South Guildford, Live to Tell Your Story Inc (also called Prepare Produce Provide) supports vulnerable youth in WA. They put their grant towards a youth participation event held at the 2023 World Indigenous Tourism Summit (WITS) in Perth.

Gunawirra, NSW

Art therapy to heal Jarjum children

Community-led organisation Gunawirra works to improve health and educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Their grant helped them supply a range of art tools to around 60 pre-school children – many of them First Nations – who were affected by flooding in Lismore.

Chelsea Community Support Services, NSW

‘Taking Control’ financial capability program

Chelsea Community Support Services provide emergency relief and social support for the Chelsea area of Melbourne. Their grant went to good use to improve people’s financial and overall wellbeing through a series of workshops for 72 participants. The program included assistance from a qualified support worker who provided one-on-one advice and post-program support as needed.

The Bower Reuse and Repair Centre, NSW

House to Home

Our grant went towards Bower Reuse and Repair Centre's House to Home Program. This program commits to furnish the homes of people who are socially or economically disadvantaged (including refugees and asylum seekers and survivors of domestic violence) while diverting household items from landfill.

Port School, WA

The Safety Net

An independent school that engages at-risk students in Years 8–12, Port School offers hands-on, vocational-style learning, flexible learning groups, individualised pastoral care, and social support through a variety of networks and external service providers. The school accommodates teenage parents and acts as an outreach for those with behavioural or mental health challenges.

Our grant provided funding for emergency relief supplies for their students, including phone credit cards, personal hygiene packs, clothing, baby essentials and grocery cards.

Empowered Women in Trades, National

Tool Skills Day

EWIT aims to empower women into skilled trades, increase diversity and engage the tradespeople that are needed. Our grant funded three of their Tool Skills Day programs, with each day engaging 40 women in Q&As, a positive psychology class, and various other sessions.

Eat Up Australia, WA

Feeding hungry Western Australian schoolkids

Eat Up’s mission is to feed hungry kids so they can grow, learn, and succeed. To date, they have provided two million lunches to more than 620 schools across Australia. Our grant provided fresh fruit to 70 WA schools, feeding 9,590 children experiencing disadvantage and helping to improve their nutrition.

Bundjalung Tribal Society, NSW

Namabunda: Youngman Creek Watershed Rehabilitation and Placemaking

Bundjalung Tribal Society (BTS) was established in the heart of Bundjalung Country in 1975, with the aim of providing low-income social and affordable housing to the Bundjalung people. BTS also owns a 32-hectare property called ‘Namabunda’ in the Northern Rivers. Our grant helped BTS to regenerate and rehabilitate the Youngman Creek corridor on the property, providing wayfinding tools for visitors and volunteers, and assistance in maintaining the utilities and infrastructure.

WA Youth Jazz Orchestra, WA

Eastern Corridor Training Band

WA Youth Jazz Orchestra is one of Australia’s leading youth jazz orchestras, with a purpose to engage and develop emerging jazz musicians towards their greatest potential in musicianship and as contributors to society.

Our grant helped fund the group's Eastern Corridor Training Band, allowing students experiencing disadvantage to learn through an ensemble-based approach.

Aspire Cairns Community Limited, QLD

'Empower Me'

ASPIRE’s 'Empower Me' program identifies strong, young, Indigenous women with leadership qualities, and offers them employment and training opportunities as mentors to vulnerable First Nations school girls, both inside and outside of the classroom. Our grant enabled more mentors to be hired increasing ASPIRE's positive impact.

Rottnest Foundation, WA

Fays Bay Coastal Revegetation Project

Our second grant for Rottnest Foundation, we provided funds for a new revegetation project at Fays Bay, rehabilitating more than 1400 square metres of coast dune system, helping to manage visitor traffic, mitigate future erosion and improve native fauna habitat.

RuffTRACK Ltd, NSW

RuffTRACK Flood, Fire Recovery & Land Rehabilitation in the MacDonald Valley

Our second grant for RuffTRACK offered continued support for their MacDonald Valley bushfire and flood recovery project, with teams working to clear and rebuild more than 18km of fence line and roadways, and six hectares of land rehabilitation. The project helps to provide skills and education to teenagers who have disengaged with school and the community, allowing them to gain a sense of self-worth and reconnection with their local community.

Friends with Dignity, QLD

The Sanctuary Program

Like their first grant, our second grant for Friends with Dignity assisted their Sanctuaries program, providing social and private housing for people who have fled from their home due to domestic violence and are transitioning from crisis accommodation to a new home. 

Seed the Ground, QLD

Burleigh Compost Hub

Our first grant went to Seed the Ground's Compost Hub in Miami on the Gold Coast, and this second grant helped them to set up a second hub and accomanying Goodwill Garden in Burleigh.

As well as collecting and composting two tonnes of coffee grinds within six months from local cafes, they also established a food garden to provide ten fresh product packages per month for local families in need.

United Way, SA

The Imagination Library

The South Australian branch of United Way is focused on improving young kids' literacy so every child has the chance to start school strong. Their Imagination Library program provides home-delivered monthly book packs to children under five to support their brain development, literacy skills, communication, and vocabulary. Our grant supported 100 vulnerable children by providing around 1200 new book packs, including a reading guide sheet for parents to help their children engage with the material.

CHATS, SA

2021 Christmas Breakfast

Community Help and Togetherness (CHATS) is an 100 per cent volunteer-based organisation that helps the homeless, financially disadvantaged, and socially isolated in the western suburbs of Adelaide. Our grant helped them add a surprise to their Christmas breakfast in 2021, with each visitor gifted a $50 Coles voucher, plus a gift of Christmas food.

Teach Learn Grow, WA

TLG Rural Tutoring Program

Teach Learn Grow provides one-on-one tutoring programs for STEAM curriculums to help bridge the education gap in primary school students from rural or remote areas. Our grant went towards their Rural Tutoring program, where roughly 15 volunteers tutored three or four students a day for the whole school week at three different primary schools in the area around Yandin Wind Farm.

RuffTRACK Ltd, NSW

Fablads Project setup

RuffTRACK takes on teenagers who have disengaged with school and the community, and works with them to provide skills and education. This grant helped assist their MacDonald Valley bushfire and flood recovery project, where RuffTRACK and the teens in their program helped to rehabilitate the land and the community through work experience and traineeships, education in land rehabilitation and sustainability, and physical and mental support for the farmers and community members affected most.

Tomaree Neighbourhood Centre Inc, NSW

Art and Cultural Program for First Nations Youth

Our grant went towards Tomaree Neighbourhood Centre’s proposed program to provide a culturally safe space for First Nations youth to connect with Country through art and story facilitated through a Worimi artist.

St Mary’s Outreach Service, WA

'Uplift and Inspire'

St Mary’s Outreach Service provides a safe and welcoming place for less-fortunate families to shelter, receive a hearty meal, do their laundry, receive health care, and be included in the community. Our grant supported their operational requirements such as food supply, hall hires, volunteer training, uniforms, mental health support and health supplies.

Baby Give Back, QLD

'We've Got You'

Baby Give Back aims to give babies and vulnerable children a safer start in life by providing essential items such as prams, cots and mattresses to families experiencing crisis. Our grant went towards their ‘We’ve Got You’ project, allowing them to purchase brand new large essential items to help decrease the waitlist times for those families who need it most.

Women and Mentoring, VIC

Volunteer recruitment

In Frankston-Mornington Peninsula more than 100 girls aged 10-17 are reported missing each year. Many present with complex needs, exposed to intergenerational trauma, alcohol/drug misuse and family violence making them vulnerable to exploitation.

We provided a grant to Women and Mentoring to help them aid girls with a screened and trained volunteers to provide the girls with a connection to a positive role model providing social support and practical assistance.

Seed the Ground, QLD

Miami Compost Hub

We helped Seed the Ground set up their Miami Compost Hub in Gold Coast to reduce the volume of organic resources going to landfill (where they decompose anaerobically and produce methane gas). This included diverting two tonnes of spent coffee grounds collected from local cafes, from landfill and from composting systems, and educating community members on the topic.

Rottnest Foundation, WA

'Longreach Link'

Our grant for Rottnest Foundation's 'Longreach Link' project helped stabilise and rehabilitate the island's coastal dune system, manage visitor traffic, minimise future erosion and improve habitat for native fauna.

This involved the propagation of 3,200 coastal species by island nursery volunteers and Rottnest employees, including installation of fencing and jute matting to protect and stabilise the site.

Friends with Dignity, QLD

The Sanctuary Program

We supported Friends with Dignity's Sanctuary program, supporting families transitioning from crisis accommodation to a new home by providing essential items such as beds, linen, and appliances, along with storage and contractor costs for moving large items.

A Better Life for Foster Kids, VIC

Crisis Cases

The number of children in out-of-home care in Victoria has risen, especially in regional areas, with many children arriving with only the clothes they are wearing.

A Better Life for Foster Kids, supported by Alinta Energy, opened a volunteer-run depot (Crisis Cases) in Koo Wee Rup to expand its Crisis Case service across regional Victoria, providing essential items for children in care and supporting carers with donations and volunteer efforts.

 

Young Change Agents

Virtual Environmental Impact Challenge

Our grant helped not-for-profit Young Change Agents with their Virtual Environmental Impact Challenge focused on equipping young (10–21 years) people to explore ideas to reduce the impact people in their community are having on the environment.

Tech Girls Movement Foundation

Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero

Our grant went towards The Tech Girls Movement Foundation, who supports students from underprivileged or remote areas to participate in its 'Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero' online competition, where the participants, girls from 7 to 17, produced high-quality business plans, pitch videos, and prototype apps

Pinchapoo

Schools Hygiene Support Program

We supported Pinchapoo's Schools Hygiene Support Program, providing 508 boxes of hygiene packs to 127 schools experiencing disadvantage and transition across metro and regional areas.

The schools reported improved class attendance, higher participation levels, and increased self-worth and respect among individuals after accessing the program.

Kids Under Cover

Education scholarships

Our grant provided 24 education scholarships for Victorians and a number of NSW and ACT residents aged 12-25 experiencing youth homelessness.

Bravehearts Foundation Ltd

Support packs for families impacted by child sexual abuse

Our grant provided 200 packs of support materials to help educate families and children on sexual offenders' behaviours, including parents' guides, posters, books, DVDs, and other materials.