Tina De Sousa and Christine Stock decided it was time to stop wondering.
The St Bernadette’s, Port Kennedy, pre-primary teacher and teacher’s assistant had both been privately thinking about the plight of Perth’s homeless for some time when Mrs Stock heard an ad for Sonshine fm’s Helping Bags for the Homeless on the radio.
The pair put out the word to their fellow staff and the families of their pre-primary students, netting 12 sleeping bags and a sizable collection of toiletries in a little over a week, as well as a $200 donation from their local IGA supermarket at Stargate Shopping Centre, Port Kennedy.
Mrs Stock said an encounter with the reality of homelessness in Perth, earlier this year, got her thinking about what she could do to make matters better.
Walking in the city with her granddaughters, she passed a homeless man asking for money. While she obliged his request, she was left feeling that she could have done more.
“Afterwards, I thought, I should have sat and talked to him. What a witness that would have been for him and for my granddaughters,” Mrs Stock told The Record.
More recently, she mentioned the thought of wanting to assist Perth’s homeless to her son.
“He said, “well, why don’t you do something about it?” and afterwards he thought, “well, why don’t I do something about it?”,” Mrs Stock said.
Her son Josh had subsequently joined the Holy Spirit of Freedom Community for their homeless street ministry in the Perth CBD.
Ms De Sousa and Mrs Stock dropped off St Bernadette’s community donation at Sonshine fm last Thursday.
Sonshine fm’s Helping Bags for the Homeless was run to coincide with national Homeless Persons’ Week, August 6-12.