Care Van Initiative
Worktrainers is the major funder in this Wangaratta based project and helped fund the purchase of a “Care Van” mobile food van that provides food relief and supplementary services to disadvantaged groups of people such as homeless, youth at risk and people with mental illness. By providing a significant amount of the funding required to purchase a mobile food van, we have expedited the set up of a necessary service for Wangaratta.
Worktrainers hopes to “leverage” of this project by instituting “Work Experience” programs based on the operations of the “Care Van”. People who want to enter or re-enter the workforce will be helped to staff the mobile food van as a volunteer work experience crew as a first step into employment.
The Care Van is able to not only fulfil a social need by providing food relief to the needy, it also begins the progress of “engagement” for many people as they come to know and trust those involved with the Care Van and in time they will often become more socially connected and willing to be involved in initiatives that help lift them out of disadvantage.
The Care Van project is based on the Albury/Wodonga Care Van initiative that was commenced by John Brabant, an Albury Dentist/Orthodontist and who is also a patron of the Wangaratta Care Van project. The Care Van aims to create a sense of identity, a sense of belonging and a sense of achievement in those less advantaged in our society. It is focused on changing “us” and “them” to become “we”. In Albury Wodonga the Care Van has become an icon, a symbol that this community cares, and that a community through a strong volunteer network can fight hunger and poverty. “Sometimes a feeling from the heart becomes a jigsaw puzzle that is meant to be put together”.
