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| » Christmas Cards » How to Help | ||
ChristmasChristmas WishYou may have heard about the move to promote this page in relation to 'Christmas,' as a fund and awareness raising project to benefit people who experience homelessness. Thank you for checking on the progress. The site is scheduled for development in January 2005, working towards a launch for Christmas in 2005. If you would like to express your interest in supporting the Christmas project, please email: dominic dot mapstone at gmail dot com To help kick the campaign off, please either link directly to this page with the anchor text 'Christmas' or if you have the time, create a page on your site about Christmas (with the word in the title, heading, body copy etc), and direct text links to this page using the word 'Christmas,' and the word 'homeless' to www.homeless.org.au Christmas on the StreetThis Christmas, (as I have for the past decade) I will be celebrating Christmas with my homeless friends. Christmas is probably the most unhappy time on the street, with the two weeks leading up to Christmas and the two weeks after Christmas being the most violent, the most intoxicated and the most depressing. Christmas brings memories of past abuse and family violence and separation form siblings who in some cases are still living with the family of origin. There are many organisations which provide food for the homeless on Christmas Day, possibly the best feed they get all year. This is great as Christmas should be a time when we as a community do what it takes to ensure our homeless friends have full tummies. But Christmas is only one day in the year. You can make a difference by volunteering with a local charity or non-profit group regularly throughout the year. Often you can nominate to help once a week or once a month even. The times are also completely flexible as people are homeless 24 hours a day 7 days a week, so there is always some service serving breakfast, lunch, dinner or making contact with people later in the night. We don't accept volunteers for Christmas. It's a nice gesture, but it is disruptive to have strangers in my opinion, enter the dynamic at such a tense time. We develop connections with people which take a long time to develop and this time is needed for respect, understanding and a sense of connectedness to develop. In the suburbs, domestic violence, drug overdose and suicide skyrocket over the Christmas period. In the news you will only really be kept up to date with the road death toll, but ask any Police Officer or ER Nurse and the truth of Christmas is far more bleak. You can do something in the lead up to Christmas in your own neighborhood to make a difference in people's lives. Gifts and tinsel are nice, but visiting an old person who is lonely can really help. Phone everyone on your Christmas Card list instead of just sending a card. It is these relationships with relatives and friends that binds a community together. So please revisit this page over the next couple of months and see how we are coming along. Our aim by Christmas 2005 is to have the site fully functioning and receiving many thousands of visits each day from around the world. All proceeds from the site will be directed to the support of homeless people. Kind regards,
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