Bayside Community Emergency Relief is a 100% volunteer run charity. Our mission is to empower people experiencing hardship and tragedy by providing requested emergency aid supplies when a disaster arises. It varies each emergency but our work is usually short term and the requested donated items are delivered to approved relief and aid organisations on the scenes who then on deliver our goods into effected regions when they are granted access.
From a simple idea on New Years Eve, a Facebook group was launched New Years Day and it was amazing to see how incredibly fast the Bayside community united and swung into action donating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of requested items for the January 2020 bushfire crisis.
It was extremely humbling to see scores of people pitching in and witnessing the many ongoing convoys heading into fire ravaged regions around Victoria. We managed to help not just people but wildlife shelters in distress too, as animals were a massive casualty of the bushfires.
Post bushfire season, the aim was to hand the model over so other communities could do the same. The group's model has been replicated by at least 1 other short term group with a similar amount of success.
However, after encouragement from many areas, Bayside Community Emergency Relief is now an incorporated association and we have been granted charity status. This gives our community the ongoing opportunity to continue to come together long term in an organized manner in times of emergency not just Bayside wide but state wide.
Thank you everyone for your amazing contribution during the bushfire crisis and encouraging people to spread the word so that we can make our communities contribution in times of emergencies even greater in the future.
We look forward to community events down the track where people can meet the faces behind the names. Stay tuned….
