Helping future generations

Lucy’s family is herself and three boys. They live in a rental which the landlord has just sold so now they have to move. This, she says voice breaking, caps a year when everything went from bad to worse.

Blows just kept coming and coming to her confidence and her ability to raise her sons.

She’s also just been burgled. She had been trying to study at university but became too sick to carry on while power bills and food bills soared through winter making her debt burden soar.

You can also add a bout of chicken pox and tonsillitis - twice. “It has been horrible … I’m coping, but these things are in the back of my head all the time.”

But there was one glimmer of hope. A helping hand came when she needed it most and when her hard-hit circumstances were about to really impact on her children.

The City Mission’s Back to School Programme provided her with new uniforms and stationery for her two oldest sons who were going to high school. Despite everything, her sons will walk into school on an equal footing with the other students and that is what the programme is all about. The youngest son is making do with hand-me-downs from the others while he is still at primary school.

“Without that help I would have had to go into more debt. It would have just been more stress. It has been
really, really helpful,” Lucy says. “They have to have a proper uniform, so they can fit in.” “School also requires regular haircuts, no hair on back of shirt. It’s just hard. It’s just hard,” she says.

Lucy is a single parent and they make up about two-thirds of the people who apply to the City Mission’s Back to School Programme. The programme is to help struggling families who can’t meet what could be costs of hundreds of dollars for uniforms, shoes and stationery. Our social workers assess the family’s situation, then help the children who need it.

Last year we spent about $195,000 supported 413 schoolchildren. This is an average of $470 per child to provide all they require for their best start.

This is a similar number to the entire roll of a small school. Year after year our programme helps a big group of children walk into their classrooms looking and feeling the same as their peers and ready to gain the life-changing benefits education can give.

We are seeing more two-parent families and even working families needing our help this year as the economic downturn affects even those with a minimum income. One mother we helped with uniforms told us she appreciated most of all how it helped her keep the worry of the family’s financial situation away from her children.

When you support our Back to School Programme you are helping future generations.

(Name and some details changed to protect privacy)