By Tania Phillips
May is traditionally the month for the annual Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal with people attending the annual breakfast or donating at any of their collection points in Rose City Shopping Centre the following week.
But what happens to the money?
In the case of the Southern Downs and Granite Belt, according to local Salvation army officers Captains Richard and Leanne Hardaker the money not only stays in the area but it goes into growing a community and combatting loneliness. The main beneficiaries are those in need at Christmas time with vouchers issued for them to buy what they need at Christmas while the pair also have a major weekly event aimed at helping those that don’t have friends or family in the area.
Richard and Leanne have been out in Warwick four years coming from the Tweed Coast and have been steadily growing their community by holding a service and Saturday dinner every week.
“It’s a great community and when we first moved out here, we realised there were actually a lot of lonely people around, people who didn’t belong to any groups,” he said.
“Once Covid hit we just wanted to do Church differently. So, we have a 45-minute chapel service at 4pm on Saturday and we have a community meal after that at our base at 24 Guy Street.
“The dinner is around 5pm but it’s all in together, people come to everything and in the Chapel Service we teach things like self esteem and life skills and how they are valuable.”
He said the dinner was sponsored by the Warwick RSL Club.
“They give us 50 meals a week, we just go there at 1pm and the meals are already ready,” he said.
“We just bring them back and put them in a hotpot or the oven or we just keep them warm until 5pm. My wife and a few other people look after desserts, so people get a main meal and desert and its restaurant quality meals.
“Last week we had 64. It’s a nice community that we are building here, and we try to highlight special events. Recently instead of mother’s day we highlighted women’s day and gave all of the women in the room a gift – a lot of them may not have had children or don’t have children with them so we just wanted to acknowledge women in that sense.”
He said it’s not as much about helping under-privileged people as it is looking after the lonely, people who may not have family in the area or at all.
“A lot of people move to Warwick and think it’s a great thing and they will be able to build community, but they don’t know where to start, so we are a starting place,” Richard said.
“We started out with about 25 people and over the two-year period its increased and we are averaging about 60 now.”
The meal and service are held ever Saturday and there is heating in winter and air conditioning for summer so it feels inviting when people arrive. And it is a diverse community with everyone from young families to retirees.
This year’s Red Shield Appeal breakfast alone raised $8,000 to enable the Richard and Leanne to keep offering the service and meal every week.
