Web Directions

Valentine’s day and Victoria

• In: Blog
• By:John
• February 9, 2009
• Leave a response

The dev­as­tat­ing fires, and the con­tin­u­ing, unfold­ing tragedy in Victoria have surely left no one who has heard of these recent events untouched. At moments like these, our instincts are inevitably to do some­thing, any­thing to help those suffering.

There are many options, for donat­ing blood, money, clothes, toys and more, out­lined here at the ABC

But here’s a thought to per­haps gal­va­nize you, your friends, fam­ily and neigh­bours into action.

This Saturday is Valentine’s day. Valentine is a myth­i­cal saint, and no longer con­sid­ered a real saint by the Catholic church. But one story about Valentine is that he was a mar­tyr for his faith, and before his exe­cu­tion, restored the sight of his gaoler’s daughter.

So, in the spirit of this Valentine, not the valen­tine of a mil­lion tacky cards and heart shaped stuffed toys, here’s some­thing you can do (and at Web Directions we’ll help) to lend some assis­tance those affected.

Why not invite friends, fam­ily and neigh­bours to your place this Saturday. Ask each of them to bring toys, good qual­ity cloth­ing, and/​or to make a dona­tion. Provide some food — it doesn’t have to be any­thing fancy (in my expe­ri­ence a few Pastizzi go a long way), and ask each to bring some­thing to drink — and on top of hope­fully col­lect­ing much needed money, clothes and toys, linen and blan­kets, let’s appre­ci­ate what we have, that so many of those affected by the fires have lost — friend­ship, fam­ily, hearth and home.

We’ll be doing that in our local com­mu­nity of Bundeena, where we are no stranger to bush­fires (if you would like to drop by here, con­tact us and we’ll let you know where)

If you plan on doing this, let us know, and we’ll gladly pass on the word, and if you like, we’ll help coor­di­nate how dona­tions can get to peo­ple like the Salvos, so that they can get to those who need them most. Heck, if you are in the Sydney area, we’ll even come round and col­lect cloth­ing, toys and the likes, and get them to the Salvation Army and sim­i­lar agencies.

Our best inten­tions can be so often way­laid with the myr­iad things in our lives — per­haps this might be a way to help ensure those inten­tions become actions.

And, if you think it is a good idea, please help spread the idea far and wide, via your blogs, twit­ter, and any other way you can think.

7 responses to “Valentine’s day and Victoria”:

1. • By:Lisa
   • February 9th, 2009
   

   This is a great idea John.

   I’d really like to add some­thing to this idea based on an inter­view I saw this morn­ing with a psy­chol­o­gist who was talk­ing about the impact of los­ing every­thing in the fires.

   I’d like to sug­gest, that rather than donat­ing clothes, you sell them at a mar­ket or have a week­end fair like you’ve sug­gested above. sell your clothes to each other and then *donate the money* to the Red Cross.

   Apparently there is a lot con­tributed to heal­ing by pro­vid­ing money so that peo­ple in need like this can rebuild their lives the way they want to, wear­ing clothes they would like to wear.

   Donated clothes will most likely wind up in big bins and dis­trib­uted to shops anyway.

   Get together and sell sausages and cakes and if you can, *Give Blood*.

2. • By:John
   • February 9th, 2009
   

   thanks lisa!

   j

3. • By:Ben Barren - Confessions of a Mad Man » First Hand Social Media Reportage Missing in #bushfires
   • February 9th, 2009

   […] Marysville, a stun­ning lit­tle town, is no more. […]

4. • By:Sara Lander
   • February 9th, 2009
   

   You are absolutely right Lisa and we are hop­ing that peo­ple will mostly donate in the form of money, but in the case of a lot of peo­ple with young chil­dren they sim­ply don’t have the time to shop to replace all their chil­drens’ clothes and toys. Fortunately chil­dren get excited by “new” things whether they are sec­ond hand or brand new from the shop. Also there is a cul­ture among par­ents of hand­ing on old baby clothes and toys to each other with­out it seem­ing like char­ity or seen to be insult­ing, chil­dren grow so fast some fan­tas­tic things may be worn only once or twice. Plus they need the clothes that they can wreck, all so waste­ful if bought new.

   Just as a case in point, a friend of one of my ‘inter­net mum­mies’ has lost every­thing, has a 3 year old daugh­ter and a baby due in 9 weeks. She is beg­ging for hand me down clothes and baby para­pher­na­lia as she sim­ply can­not get out to replace them.

5. • By:Lisa
   • February 9th, 2009
   

   Yes they must be des­per­ate to get their hands on any­thing. I really hope man­u­fac­tur­ers will donate cloth­ing and nap­pies etc as well. there is just so much that they need isn’t there?

6. • By:john Allsopp
   • February 10th, 2009
   

   Another thing I’ll be fol­low­ing up on with some agen­cies is do folks need lap­tops and com­put­ers? Kids who might need them for school and have lost them in the fires.

   If so, we will do a drive to have you out there donate older, but use­ful com­put­ers, ready to go, so that these kids don’t suf­fer from slip­ping behind at school due to lack of such resources.

   Stay tuned

   j

7. • By:Local Government Web Network » Help victims of the bushfires in Victoria
   • February 12th, 2009

   […] And here’s a nice idea from John Allsopp at Web Directions to gather your mates and donate what you can in the spirit of St Valentine. […]

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