Local not-for-profit organisation, Youturn, has announced the appointment of Noosa Mayor Clare Stewart to the position of Patron and cut the ribbon to officially open its Tiny homes project, established in partnership with Noosa Council, to provide accommodation to young people facing homelessness.
Following Youturn’s AGM last week, the announcement of a patron was made at their Year in Review event attended by their Board, Executive team, stakeholders and staff.
Youturn’s chief executive officer Dr Tanya Bell said, “When identifying a possible patron, a first for our organisation, it was only natural to think of Mayor Clare.”
“With our rich and long history in the Tewantin / Noosa region, we have built a great working relationship and connection with Noosa Council.
“On top of that, Mayor Clare is a respected, dedicated and proactive leader in our community.
“She shares our strong values in wanting to help people and communities in very real and practical ways.
“Clare is committed to making our region better, is willing to listen to understand, be innovative and agile – and we strongly believe that she would be the perfect compliment to Youturn, and help elevate the work that we do in supporting vulnerable people in this region.”
Youturn is a not-for-profit charity based at Tewantin that was started over 30 years ago to help address youth homelessness in the Noosa region. Since then, the organisation has grown substantially working with young people and those that support them, expanding their focus to include Child Safety, Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and of course Homelessness.
Their humble beginnings started as a Youth Homelessness grass roots project in 1989 with the Noosa Accommodation Project (NAP) which was officially launched by five volunteers supporting six young people.
They have grown significantly since then to work at 15 locations across South East Queensland with a staff base of 168 employees and last year helped over 9,960 vulnerable people.
“It is an absolute privilege to be named Patron of Youturn,” Mayor Stewart said.
“I look forward to working closely with Youturn going forward and throwing my full support behind this organisation in their works to improve the lives of so many in our community.”
Dr Bell said, “We are thrilled that Mayor Clare has made this generous commitment and accepted our invitation to become Patron and we look forward to working closely with her and benefiting from her continued support and guidance.”
