Donors to Anglicare's latest appeal have turned a dead branch into a tree full of funds, delivering $100,000 to those who will need it the most this winter.
Friday’s Winter's Tale corporate luncheon, hosted by the ABC's Margaret Throsby, asked the big end of town how much they were prepared to help Sydney's disadvantaged.
Ms Throsby told the 90-strong audience that without the work of Anglicare many Sydneysiders would be excluded from their own society.
"We think of the cost of getting the homeless off the street," she said.
"But what's the cost, ethical and financial, of leaving them there?"
Guests were asked to enter into partnership with Anglicare by buying leaves for the "tree of hope', or by engaging in a silent auction to support significant programs.
Anglicare's growing focus on developing partnerships with parishes, corporations and other community organisations is the way forward for the welfare organisation, says CEO Peter Kell.
Mr Kell says the strong relationship Anglicare has developed with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, who sponsor an early-intervention program for teenage mums, is a model he hopes will be replicated by other socially resonsible companies.
"Their involvement is a heart and soul involvement, to the extent of some of their executives and staff being volunteers," he says.
"If we have kept young people off the street, or prevented abuse, then step by step the future has changed for us all."
Photographs courtesy Robert Edwards
