Interact: 

Giving Back to the Community

Back in 2014, Greenvale Rotary Club started a fundraising campaign for "Orange Sky Laundry" with the aim of raising $50 000 to assist homeless people in our area. With such a large target, in 2015/16, the campaign was expanded to a Rotary District 9790 Project. By this stage, Orange Sky had become an incorporated entity and so Rotary went searching for an alternative project which could assist homeless people of our region.

Rotary settled on an organisation called Youth Holistic Outreach Program (YHOP) talking to them about what would serve them best with their Youth Homeless Outreach Programs.  Because homeless people don’t come to a centralised address, their approach was to go where the homeless were to be found and proactively approach.  A car was what they believed would expand and improve the efficiency of their work.  

From Richie Goonan (Executive Manager Community Health)

Our Mission to provide high impact support, without judgement, full stop. Youth Projects welcomes people of any age, gender, sex, sexuality, culture, religion and ability. We work with people facing barriers to social and economic participation with a primary focus on young people and people experiencing homelessness to provide responsive and timely intervention to open up pathways out of poverty and homelessness - breaking the cycle of disadvantage.

There is no better example of our approach than the Youth Holistic Outreach Program (YHOP).  YHOP is an early intervention assertive outreach service delivered by Youth Projects. YHOP engages and connects at-risk young people aged 12 to 25 years to individualised housing, mental health education, training, employment and crisis supports.   Since 2018 YHOP has engaged close to 500 young people aged 12 to 25 years who would have otherwise fallen through the cracks.

Our team engages young people to support them to access the services they need and builds their capacity to navigate these systems with the help of family and friends.  We work with young people facing homelessness to assist them to stabilise current housing, and where that is not possible, we help them secure housing through community housing agencies and the private rental market.  Often this requires our team to drive young people to appointments, assist with inspecting properties, and assisting them with housing applications. 

Together with Rotary Clubs of Broadmeadows, Craigieburn, Romsey/Lancefield and Sunbury along with Glenroy RSL, $21000 was collected, with a contribution of $2,000 from Aitken Interact Club.

Earlier this term, immediate Past-President, Jasmine and Current Interact President, Rhiannon were invited to represent our students when the keys were handed over to Youth Projects. The two students gathered at Essendon Mazda with representatives from the Rotary Clubs and RSL who all contributed to the fundraising effort.