Canberra cafes are once again uniting against homelessness this Friday 5 August by raising money for local charities through CafeSmart.
This week is Homelessness Week, 1-7 August, and local coffee shops, including East Row Specialty Coffee, Delicia Acai CBR, Stella’s by the Lake, and The Coffee Club stores, are raising awareness on the crisis facing thousands of Australians suffering from the rise in living costs.
Each café will donate $1 per coffee sold on Friday from their own bottom line. Customers can also help scale the impact by donating the cost of a coffee online.
Donations raised through CafeSmart provide emergency grants to grassroots homeless charities that often have little public funding to sustain their work.
Funds raised are kept local, meaning cafes are directly supporting homeless services in their region.
Last year, Roundabout Canberra received a CafeSmart grant to help enable them in providing babies and young children in need with essential toiletries such as nappies, wipes, and formula. This was distributed through Roundabout’s network of over 90 social services agencies in the Capital Region.
“As a grassroots charity powered by volunteers, we are very grateful for community support to enable us to continue this wonderful service,” said CEO of Roundabout ACT, Jeanette Dyer.
Over the past 11 years, CafeSmart has raised and distributed over $1.6 million to more than 1,000 projects by bringing together local cafés and coffee drinkers, to help vulnerable people in their neighbourhood.
CEO of StreetSmart Australia, Geoff Hills, said that supporting local homelessness projects is more important now than ever, as grassroot services are “doing it tough in recent times yet powering through as they face increased demands on services”.
COVID exposed and exacerbated strains on the community sector, with only 20 per cent of community sector organisations reporting that their main funding source covers the full costs of service delivery.
At the same time, food insecurity is impacting more Australians than ever, often for the first time.
OzHarvest is currently recording demand at 62 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Frontline homelessness services, like those supported by CafeSmart, are delivering hot meals, supporting victims of domestic violence, providing a safe place to sleep, supplying free medical care, and working hard towards long-term solutions to the crisis.
To join the fight against homelessness, find your local participating café via the CafeSmart interactive map at streetsmartaustralia.org/cafesmart
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