By Casey Neill
Shampoo, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, tissues – they’re everyday items that are out of reach for many people who are homeless or sleeping rough.
So VCAL students from SkillsPlus decided to do something to help at Dandenong’s Cornerstone Contact Centre.
They set up a Power to the People project, fund-raised and collected donations, and handed over hygiene packs to Cornerstone CEO Stephen Barrington on Wednesday 9 November.
The students have been volunteering at Cornerstone each Wednesday and found it confronting that many of the people attending the Walker Street service were unable to afford basic hygiene items.
“For a lot of the people living in rooming houses, by the time they pay their board there they’ve got $40 a week to live on,” Mr Barrington said.
“For some of the students it’s not that dissimilar to their own experience of life.”
He said they’d been putting themselves out of their comfort zones and realising people were worse off than them.
“So many say when they serve, see the smiles, it makes them feel good about life,” he said.
“When we give we actually receive back more ourselves.”
Student Paris Porter said: “Cornerstone gave me and the other students so much that we decided to give back.
SkillsPlus CEO Ben Vasiliou said the project would have a multi-faceted effect on the young people involved.
“A large percentage of our students don’t fit the mainstream school environment and are having challenges of their own,” he said.
“Projects like this have an effect both inside and outside of the classroom.”
