Help us rebuild our home - Helping Hands Mission

Helping Hands - Our Big Move

“We’ve built a truly amazing space, and now we need your help to build it again”.

Anyone who has been to Helping Hands Mission in Airport West knows what a special place it is. If you live, work or play in Moonee Valley, odds are you or someone close to you is connected to Helping Hands! With over 300 volunteers, 9,000 registered Community Pantry clients and 400 plus customers visiting each day, we have become such an important part of the local community.

Our home in Fullarton Road is being redeveloped in January 2024, so we need to move. We’ve found a new site that will allow us to keep on doing what we do, but at the moment it’s a big empty shed – we need your help to turn it into our home.

We might be a small charity, but we deliver so much.

Just at our Fullarton Road site, we have:

- An amazing op shop that for many in the local community is the place where you can hunt around for a bargain, but also the place that many rely on to find the day-to-day essentials when money is tight. It’s a place where you can donate the stuff you no longer need, knowing it will find a new home and help raise money to support local families.

- A community pantry that provides food security for hundreds of families a week - meals on the table, fresh fruit and veg, and some treats for the kid’s lunch boxes.

- A Community Dining Room that serves up morning tea, afternoon tea, and a hot lunch to 60+ visitors each day.

- A Material Aid program that supports 40+ charities, local Councils, and Safe Steps through the provision of whitegoods, furniture, clothing, household items, and bedding at no cost.

- An Assisted Volunteers Program that provides opportunities for everyone to enjoy the benefits that come from volunteering. We currently have 26 team members and their carers participating each week.

We’ve been able to build a pretty amazing space. A space in the community that’s familiar and safe and can provide support to those that need it, whether that comes in the form of a house full of furniture, food to feed their families, or something as simple as a cuppa and a chat.

For our staff, volunteers and our Assisted Volunteers - a place where you can make a difference and where you are valued for the contribution you make. A place to learn new skills and or gain valuable work experience which can be used as a stepping stone to finding new employment; and a place where you can do something you love, knowing that you really are helping to make a difference;

For our charity partners and supporters, we hope that Helping Hands brings a knowing that every dollar donated is more than quadrupled in terms of value realised for the community.

Whoever you are, and however you are connected to Helping Hands Mission, we want you to know that together you have helped build a pretty amazing space… now we’re asking you to help us build it again!

Our Big Move

Early this year we were faced with the challenge of having to find a new home – somewhere that allowed us to stay local, that had access to public transport and that gave us an equivalent amount of space to what we have now. After months of searching, we’ve finally found that space.

We now face the enormous task of turning a huge empty warehouse into our new home! It’s important to us that we are able to recreate the Helping Hands that you all know and love and that so many people depend on. To do this, we need funds.

As a charity, Helping Hands does not rely on government funding. All of the money we raise in our Op Shops goes directly into running our food aid, material aid and social inclusion programs, which doesn’t leave any left over for “building a new home”.

This is why, for the very first time, we are putting our hands up and asking you for a ‘helping hand’.

All of the money raised in this campaign will directly support:

- Building and installation of a Community Kitchen and Dining Room

- Building a brand new Community Pantry with the capacity to help feed more families in need

- Relocating one of our existing portables and turning it into a brand new home for our Assisted Volunteers program

- Recreating the fabulous Op Shops that you all know and love – including the relocation of Gaye’s Vintage Shop

- Ensuring that everything, including the change rooms and the toilets are wheelchair accessible

- Achieving all of this with minimal disruption to our aid programs – particularly our Community Pantry where demand is higher than ever!

How you can support us…

We live by the motto ‘little pennies are sweet’ so we are really grateful for any donation amount you can give. All donations are tax deductible. You can also donate directly at any of our Op Shops or via our website.

If donating isn’t an option, we’d love you to share this GoFundMe link with your networks, follow and like our posts on social media, and send some positive vibes our way!

Find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok @hhmission