Call for volunteers as shelter prepares for winter

THE call is out for Bendigo Winter Night Shelter (BWNS) volunteers as the homeless service gears up for its sixth year of operation.

Three hundred people are needed to help provide shelter, accommodation and meals for the city’s homeless from June 1 to August 31.

BWNS chair Andrew Plant said about 100 people had volunteered so far, but more were needed to allow the shelter to operate seven days a week at its Koolamurt Park Scout Camp site at Spring Gully.

“We need 300 to make it work,” Mr Plant said. “Last year we got about 225 so we only ran it for five days, Monday to Friday, but if we want to run it all seven days week to week we have to have 300.”

The shelter accommodates as many as 800 people – or an average of eight people a night – during its winter season, with volunteers working in four shifts a night to look after its guests.

It has sponsors, but many people become involved individually by acting as ‘meal providers’.

“They will go and buy it (food), they cook it and bring it in several times over winter,” Mr Plant said. “Most will cook four to eight meals, depending on how often they can volunteer.”

Organisations are also involved, for example a Bendigo business takes care of laundry needs and a catering company has come on board this year to help manage meal ingredients.

“It’s a real group effort,” Mr Plant said, adding that the MADCOW Cafe – and other agencies – played a major role in the shelter’s activities, particularly with organising intakes.

MADCOW (Make a Difference, Change Our World) is a Bendigo charity that aids the homeless and is active in other social and community issues.

Expressions of interest in working at the shelter can be made at its website, bwns.org.au, or by phone on  0422 482 261.

People needing to use the shelter can register the same way.