By Abbey Cannan
With the support of the Noosa community, Rotary Noosa Daybreak and Officeworks, Bendigo Bank at Tewantin are helping send 50 students back to school with the supplies they need.
For many Australians, the past 12 months have been challenging, but for the millions of children and young people living in financial hardship it has been extremely tough.
Unfortunately, the number of young children going without the regular life basics is increasing and they don’t have what they need to learn or reach their full potential at school.
To help give local students an equal opportunity at success, Bendigo Bank Tewantin’s Zoe Reinke said they came up with the idea to launch a back to school campaign.
“Basically we came back in 2021 and we saw a lot of families were struggling after the Covid lockdown last year,“ Zoe said.
“We did some research and to send somebody back to school costs about $1000, which is not including laptops, uniforms and all of those extra items.“
Partnering with SunnyKids and Inclusive Kids, the Community Bank launched their back to school campaign.
“We just asked our customers, people who follow us on social media, and the community to donate a backpack full of supplies or whatever they could afford at the time,“ Zoe said.
“We were absolutely overwhelmed. We got about 50 in total and then two boxes of extra supplies and then the bank donated $500 to each of the charities as well.“
Rotary Noosa Daybreak member Peter Smith said they were happy to come on board to help with the initiative.
“I think it’s a great initiative by Bendigo Bank and everybody is happy to join in because it makes a difference to a lot of kids’ lives and that’s the important part,“ he said.
Noosa MP Sandy Bolton said this type of assistance for Noosa’s kids was appreciated by families.
“It really makes a difference,“ she said.
