We received a letter from the the Raise Foundation which was discussed at the recent Executive Committee meeting.
It is copied below for your consideration, along with David Spillane's reply (our President!)
Good Morning Jo, we tabled your correspondence at our management meeting and although we certainly believe your program is worthy of our support we also recognized our focus at this point of time is of assisting fathers and male supporters of people with autism. having said that we also agreed to send out your information to our members and let people contact you individually should they wish to be involved.
wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
David Spillane
President
South Brisbane Men's Shed
On Mon, Dec 3, 2018 at 1:30 PM Joanne Comerford <joanne.comerford@raise.org.au> wrote:
Good Afternoon
My name is Jo Comerford and I work for an organisation called Raise Foundation.
Raise Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that recruits volunteers from local communities to mentor young people identified by their high school to benefit from a neutral positive role model. Raise is currently seeking interested volunteers who are able to spare 2 hours a week in school term time to mentor a young person. Mentors might be retired, parenting at home, studying, or have flexible work hours. You don’t have to be a teacher or an expert to be a mentor!!
We have 10 fully funded programs across Brisbane in 2019. For your local interest we are to run our 4th program at Yeronga SHS, and our 2nd program at Holland Park SHS in 2019, amongst other northside located schools. We also have many other Brisbane high schools on our waiting list for 2020. With the help of volunteers, Raise aims to support over 150 young Queenslanders (and over 1500 young people nationally) to feel more resilient, capable and connected.
One of the reasons that I am contacting The Men's Shed, is that while our lovely female mentors do amazing work with both our male and female students, we need more men in our mentor groups to be there for our male students - our boys - who particularly need a male role model in their lives. Some of our boys find it very difficult to open up to a woman, and need a man to understand. Could The Men's Shed members in Brisbane help us out by becoming mentors?
Each volunteer mentor is provided with free training in youth mentoring to equip them with the necessary skills needed to make a real difference in the life of a young person. No other special skills or qualifications are required. Being a Raise Mentor is a truly rewarding role, and really does create positive outcomes and life change for our young people.
I have attached some flyers that can easily be placed on social media, or incorporated into newsletters and emails.
The link below gives more information and is the first step for anyone wanting to volunteer with Raise Foundation – www.raise.org.au/volunteer
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Jo Comerford
Program Counsellor
0422 505 951
raise.org.au
