Hi!
How are you going?
The end of the year/ Christmas season can bring a whole mixed bag of emotions- exhaustion, excitement, sadness, hope and the joy of unexpected kindness.
From our family to yours- we wish you all the very best bits and virtual hugs for the not-so-good bits.
Recently, we enjoyed running these 2 events…
For Mental Health Week…
we played Feel Good Bingo, sharing what lifts us mentally to create our bingo cards.
We heard all about the fantastic support services at Townsville Medicare Mental Health Centre from Que.
They provide a free, walk in service with extended opening hours, 365 days a year! (with no medicare card needed)
Then we made uplifting laminated Speech Bubbles that we installed at Medicare Mental Health Centre waiting room, to offer some support to waiting guests.
They were very well received, and we hope they help.
Attendees really drew on personal experience to create their nuggets of wisdom and support.
For Kindness Week
we put together Random Acts of Kindness cards with little gifts and distributed them throughout the community, along with Freddo Frogs, to over 100 recipients at Kmart Aitkenvale, Centrelink, The Townsville Hospital, the Strand and CBD (including Strand police) and across local neighbourhoods far and wide.
We received a lovely message from a recipient who is going through very tough times ‘it was just what she needed’.
We were very excited to have a whole team of us on the job this year, creating these and ’Kindness Bombing’ our community.
It felt a bit like Santa’s workshop.
Speaking of Santa’s workshop,
on December 12 from 10.30-12 we are going to be stuffing Santa Sacks with gifts and treats for kids who won’t have much this Christmas at our Community Christmas Kindness Event at our Kind Café Missy Moos Coffee in the air-conditioned Centacare NQ meeting room (thanks team!).
We’d love you to join us.
We’ll be having festive games and there’s a prize for most festive dress up.
We’re charging $30 for this one, which gives you a drink and snacks from Missy Moos Coffee (worth $10) and the remaining $20 will be used to purchase gifts for the kids.
You can purchase a ticket or make a donation here… https://events.humanitix.com/community-christmas-kindness
There is also a basket at Missy Moos for donations.
If you have any spare pillowcases or tinsel, we’d love them to make our Santa Sacks.
We were originally going to run our…
December event at Wounded Heroes but encountered some logistical problems which means it won’t be happening just yet.
Meanwhile, have you checked out their new centre in Hyde Park?
What a great place to shop- with an op shop and café in one place, and proceeds used to support our veterans in crisis.
Great for a fun day out with a friend.
After a year of generously sponsoring The Kindness Catalyst…
our lovely sponsor Donna Glass from Helen Munro Property has moved her kindness elsewhere- you can still catch her out and about in the community being kind.
We would like to extend our sincere thanks to her for her sponsorship which has helped us keep our costs low, enabling more people to join in our Community Kindness Events.
If you or someone you know would like to sponsor The Kindness Catalyst, please let us know.
Together we can make a big difference to many and create ripples of kindness that lift us all (plus lots of promotion and joy for our sponsor)
This Christmas, don’t forget that…
you can also Shop Kind by purchasing a Kindness Gift Box.
These gift boxes are carefully curated and contain specially designed original art/ items that give you a Hug (our Pick me up Pack) or provide hours of Kindness Activities (our Kindness Activity Pack for 2) $10 from each box is used to fund our kindness Events.
We offer free delivery in the Townsville area or $15 postage. You can purchase them here… https://thekindnesscatalyst.com.au/shop/
This year it has been pure joy (ok, maybe a little stress)…
to continue to spread kindness.
We started the Townsville Foodshare Directory– where people can donate food (long life, event surplus, fresh produce) to organisations and food pantries.
You can find it on our website https://thekindnesscatalyst.com.au/townsville-food-share-directory
Organisations wishing to join can register on the website.
We released our annual stats after Kindness Week:
So far we have run 37 events with 922 participants and impacted 4293 people.
That’s actually a very conservative impact count, because the science says that everyone who hears about kindness gets a boost to all 4 of their happy hormones and they’re more likely to pay it forward.
My last Facebook post about Nicki’s Community Pantry and Pay it Forward Board at Missy Moos Coffee has already received over 1000 views!
Who knows where the ripple ends?!
Rent is sky high at the moment…
and lots of people are doing it tough.
I have seen lots of food requests on the Everything Townsville Facebook page.
If you or someone you know needs emergency food, accommodation, or funds, you can view the Townsville Community Information Centre Emergency Programs Publication here https://www.cictownsville.com.au/services-and-publications/
Just a reminder that…
the awesome Centacare NQ team will be running their School Savvy event again next year.
They will have free school supplies and uniforms available the week before school goes back, and they are taking donations now.
More info can be found here… https://www.centacarenq.org.au/schoolsavvy/
There is so much kindness to be found in the community at Christmas time.
If you look on Facebook, you will be pleasantly surprised how many people are looking for a way to help this Christmas. It makes my heart happy.
I hope you experience the joy of both giving and receiving kindness this Christmas xxx
Blessings x
Fiona and Steve
P.S. Nicki has just extended the Community Pantry at Missy Moos Coffee because it was overflowing! How good is that? Thanks so much Nicki for being a Kind Café xx
