Helping Others

Learn more about the charities we support and how we incorporate helping others every day

Mitchell Street is a BIG (Businesses Investing in Geelong) Program Partner of Give Where You Live

 

The BIG Program is specifically developed for the Small-Medium Business sector in Geelong.  We make a monthly donation – which helps to collectively make a significant contribution to support our region’s most disadvantaged.

 

 

Give Where You Live - Overview

 

Since 1954, the Give Where You Live Foundation has been bringing individual donors, corporate supporters and community partners together to help our region’s most vulnerable people – to work together to Build a Better Community. For a brief overview, click here to watch our video.

 

The Give Where You Live Foundation is a community foundation aiming to solve one of the most complex and entrenched social issues in our community – disadvantage. We do this in two ways:

  1. We create partnerships with community organisations by providing grants for the delivery of services and programs impacting the root causes and symptoms of disadvantage including education, jobs, family violence, addiction, hunger and homeless. Since 1954 we have provided over $60 million in grants. In 2016 the Give Where You Live Foundation will provide over $1.7 million to 50 plus community organisations working to address disadvantage in our community. These organisations work across our three Program areas:
    • Live and Learn. This program aims to provide educational opportunities as a pathway out of disadvantage. The key focus areas of this Program are school readiness, disengaged youth and education, training and employment pathways. 2016 Live & Learn grants
    • Health and Wellbeing. This program aims to improve social inclusion and physical and mental health. The key focus areas of this Program are healthy ageing, living with a disability, reducing risky choices and life crisis. 2016 Health & Wellbeing grants
    • Survive and Thrive This program aims to contribute to the basic levels of economic security including food, shelter, pharmacy and household goods for those most in need. The key focus areas of this Program are homelessness and housing support, financial skills and ongoing financial strategies and emergency relief and basic food security. 2016 Survive & Thrive grants
  1. We develop, implement and manage our own programs that target disadvantage directly including:

The Foundation has a long standing and ongoing commitment to reducing disadvantage by working with organisations and programs that provide emergency relief, especially food. Feed Geelong seeks to improve the immediate food insecurity for those most in need in our community. The Foundation raises funds and awareness of this issue through the Feed Geelong Appeal; manages a significant emergency relief voucher program, and builds the capacity of community organisations distributing and providing food to those in need through approximately $300,000 of grants per annum.

 

GROW is a bold and ambitious long-term strategy for tackling disadvantage in the G21 region. A joint initiative of the Give Where You Live Foundation and G21-Geelong Region Alliance, GROW is uniting and aligning philanthropic, business, government and community organisations to work together towards a collective goal. GROW is creating sustainable job opportunities and brokering employment pathways that improve opportunities for long-term job-seekers. GROW’s target areas are Corio, Norlane, Whittington and Colac.

 

ENGAGE is a partnership program of the Give Where You Live Foundation, Barwon Child, Youth & Family and Gforce Employment Solutions. The program educates and empowers young people aged 15-25 years in our region to effect positive change. ENGAGE provides them with opportunities to identify issues important to them and to make grants to organisations working on these issues.