A church for the community

In 2013, The Salvation Army in Young joined forces with other groups in the town to ensure that students at the local high school had a nutritious breakfast. The Young High School Parents and Citizens Association runs the breakfast, in conjunction with Youth Connections and donations from Kelloggs and The Salvation Army. We donate the bread that we pick up on our ‘bread rescue’ run from Woolworths each morning, five days a week, explains The Salvation Army’s leader in Young, Laurie Anderson: We store it for the school and deliver the sliced loaves from our freezers whenever the Breakfast Club needs it. The bread has also given the Young Corps an opportunity to network with other agencies in the town, including the community welfare centre, youth club, women’s crisis centre, and another local church that prepares hampers for those in need. Through the contacts we have made, we are able to make more of an impact in the community, said Mr Anderson. For example, in Homelessness Week we combined with other agencies and ran a free barbecue at the corps. We are blessed to be able to use our resources to help others without these resources as together we can serve those in need.