Saturday, March 28, 2015

The Polite Team Needs Your Help

If there is one thing we are good at and where we get good results it must be asking help for others. We have asked help for individual people who needed basic furniture, groceries, cleaning products, job-interview clothes, children's toys, you name it, and people are always so generous and come up with things that these people in need really need... We have asked help for our BBQs for the Homeless and Others in Need, and people gladly chipped in, contributing to and towards the food, donating clothes, shoes, toiletries and what have you. We have been so touched to see the community coming together in more amazing ways than one. We couldn't help others as we do without your help!

For me, this was the most touching example of the community coming together for the homeless and others in need: for our Christmas BBQ we did a callout on Facebook for presents for the children at the BBQ, and this was the result: a bus full of carefully wrapped Christmas presents for the less fortunate... I'm still crying happy tears when I think about it... 

Asking help for others is easy. Asking help for ourselves is often a lot more difficult though, but everybody needs to do it sometimes because that's just how life is. All of us have had times where we have been the givers of help, whereas at other times we have received help.

As you know, our charity Signal Flare began as a dream of Grant the Polite Guy. Starting out organizing BBQs for the Homeless and Others in Need when he was himself homeless and finding these BBQs to be hugely successful, he began to think of ways in which he could help disadvantaged people even more. He thought about starting a charity because a charity could help a lot more people in many more ways than a single individual can. Grant's BBQs grew, I came on board and Grant's BBQs became our BBQs which grew even more, and we became the Polite Team. And with the help of a wonderful, dedicated group of people Grant's dream, the charity Signal Flare, became a reality. We are a registered not for profit charity and a Deductible Gift Recipient, meaning that any donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.

So far, we have had many successful BBQs and where possible we have helped individual people on a one-on-one basis, quite a lot of them actually. We have done plenty of Pies and Cokes - Grant's term for sitting down with someone who is doing it tough, buying him or her something to eat and drink and having a chat to see how we can help. All of the Pies and Cokes, some of the help, and all of the fuel used for helping people have come out of Grant's and my own pockets because Signal Flare simply does not have the funds yet. Imagine the possibilities and how much help we can provide once Signal Flare is more financial!

Between now and the end of May, Signal Flare's major recurring must-pay costs are due, and Signal Flare just doesn't have the money in the bank... To give you an idea of what is due:

Post Office Box Services: $408, due 15 April
RACQ renewal: $358, due 14 May
Public Liability Insurance: $833, due 26 May

If you would like to donate towards one of these fees, towards petrol, towards our rego fees ($771 due in August) or generally to help Signal Flare grow so that we can help more people in more ways or if you know anyone who would, here are our bank details:
Bank of Queensland
BSB: 124-001
Account Number: 22066259
Account Name: Signal Flare Inc
As I said before, it's easier to ask help for other people than to ask it for our own charity: it feels like we should be giving help, not asking for it. Yet we find ourselves in a spot where we need to do this if we want to continue to help people and expand on the helping, and we know that the help we give is badly needed. All donations big and small do make a difference. If you consider donating, please remember your donations of $2 or more will be tax deductible. Please add a reference outlining whether your donation is towards our GPO Box fee (due the soonest), RACQ, PLI, or other, and remember to notify us of your donation on signalflare_secretary@yahoo.com.au so we can send you a receipt for your tax purposes. Thank you so much for your consideration.
Thank you for reading this blog post, and have a wonderful weekend.

Bernie the Polite Girl for the Polite Team
berniethepolitegirl@gmail.com

No comments:

Post a Comment