Belle Property hosted a morning tea at its new Harbour Street office on Thursday for the Illawarra International Women’s Day Committee to hand out more than $38,000 to five organisations who help women in the region.
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On March 2 the business was the presenting partner for the 13th annual International Women’s Day Lunch attended by more than 750 people at WIN Entertainment Centre.
Belle Property then wanted to help the committee invite sponsors and supporters to witness the outcomes of their contributions first hand.
At Thursday’s morning tea International Women’s Day Illawarra chair Vicky Tiegs revealed the money raised in 2018 will help hundreds of women and children during the next 12 months,
Mrs Tiegs said that would not be possible without so much generous support from so many in the Illawarra business community.
“Since we started the annual event the committee and the sponsors have raised over $323,000 which is such an achievement,” she said.
“I commend all the committee for all their hard work over the years and all our sponsors who help us achieve this.”
Mrs Tiegs said after Belle Property became a sponsor in 2017 the directors said they would like to not only be involved again in 2018 but do even more. But she said what they did was above and beyond what anyone expected.
“This year Belle Property came on board as event partner. The minute they were approached Jeremy Hodder, Sara Hodder, Nicole Kay and Darren Kay did not hesitate to put their hand up. They didn’t put any boundaries on us in terms of what they wanted. They just said “we want to be involved, we want to help and we want to make a difference”. For that I want to thank you and your team very much.”
Tonee McComb spoke on behalf of the directors and welcomed everyone to the new office. “We are really quite proud to align ourselves with such an amazing organisation. Especially because equality is a really important issue for us here.”
Mrs Tiegs used the morning tea to acknowledge all the supporters of the International Women’s Day lunch in March
“Today is all about thanking all our sponsors who get behind our event and raise much needed funds for the organisations that provide services to women in the Illawarra,” she said.
“We have already handed out over $12,000 in scholarship funds which is a fantastic outcome for a little event that started out as an acorn and has now grown to what it is today. Beyond the fundraising that we do we also aim to create awareness about the issues that women in the Illawarra still face and the challenges we still need to overcome”.
“One of the things I love to talk about is that this is not only a women’s issue. It is a community issue. This requires a joint effort between men and women. And it is for generations to come not just this current generation. We need change, we need equality and men are very much a part of the solution in helping the women get there.”
International Women’s Day lunch helps many Illawarra women
The Illawarra International Women’s Day Committee presented the proceeds of its annual lunch at WIN Entertainment Centre to five fundraising beneficiaries on Thursday.
International Women’s Day Illawarra chair Vicki Tiegs acknowledged sponsors and scholarship recipients prior handing over more than $38,000 to Supported Accommodation & Homelessness Services Shoalhaven Illawarra (SAHSSI), Illawarra Women’s Health Centre, One Door, Sisters’ Cancer Group and Circus Wow.
SAHSSI received $20,000 in IWD Illawarra funding for two programs.
“We have been supporting SAHSSI for a number of years,” Mrs Tiegs said.
“They are a not-for-profit specialist for homelessness and they cover the Illawarra and the Shoalhaven regions. In the last fiscal year they supported 733 with or without children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in the Illawarra and 313 women in the Shoalhaven.
The IWD funding will support the Domestic Violence Early Intervention Program in high schools and the Preventative Child Protection program in women’s clinical groups at refuges which is about reducing the impacts of domestic violence on children.
SAHSSI chief executive Kathy Colyer said both programs work towards the prevention of domestic violence and supporting women who have children suffering from being in a domestic violent situation.
“I would just like to thank everybody for their support because it is really appreciated,” she said.
Ms Colyer also revealed SAHSSI had just purchased its first property.
“We have been saving for many years to be able to provide more accommodation for women and children escaping domestic violence,” she said.
“It has been renovated to suit our purpose and we are very excited about it and we will hopefully purchase more properties down the track as well.”
Also present was Dr Kara Vine-Parrow who was the inaugural recipient of the Dr Margaret Gardiner Scholarship for Medical Research.
At the end of the presentation Mrs Tiegs announced the IWD Day lunch will be held on March 8, 2019.