Program Overview
TLC Support through its direct action programs serves people in need in the local area to ensure they are reached and supported.
Bayswater North and surrounding suburbs have a diversity of needs and many of its residents have few support mechanisms such as a functioning extended family. We attempt to meet these needs in practical ways with a mix of paid and volunteer staff that welcome anyone into our extended community life.
Food Bank
TLC Support Inc. operates a food bank that provides food relief for people living in the postcode area (3153) facing financial hardship, unemployment, poverty and difficult circumstances.
Food donations are received from the church community and the Vic Relief Foodbank program, a program of Foodbank Australia as well as purchasing additional items to enhance the range of food we can offer.
Food Parcels are available from the TLC Office: Monday & Tuesday 1 - 4pm
Explore Youth and Family Therapy (Explore)
Explore supports young people to discover their potential, grow in self-care, develop strategies for a healthy relationship with family and others, to connect with the community and live well.
Explore utilises counselling, therapeutic group work, narrative and bush adventure therapy in many settings; home, school and the bush to achieve its objectives.
Explore is a not-for-profit and values partnerships with other organisations and volunteers to provide a varied and flexible approach to meet the needs of young people, with a focus on those 'at risk' and families in distress.
YaFT supports young people and families in need or distress in Eastern & Southern Melbourne and Gippsland, having developed over the last 30 years.
Refugees
Sharing Hope
Through a partnership with Sharing Hope, TLC supports Karen Burmese refugees as they transition from refugee camps on the Thai/Burma border to life in Australia.
The Brink
Contact: Office@tlcchurch.org.au
Tuesday 10am (includes lunch)
The Brink is an art and craft drop in centre for isolated and lonely members of the community to engage. The program runs for 4 hours every week. A light lunch and coffee is available for a minimal fee.
One of the projects of the Brink community has been to make a Butterfly Quilt for The Butterfly Children’s Hospice in China.
Winter Shelter
Winter is a terrible time to have nowhere safe and warm to sleep.
There is a great shortage of overnight accommodation for homeless men, in Maroondah. It's tough for everybody struggling with low cost accommodation, but while there are programs for homeless youth, and significant resources for homeless women and children, there are very few places homeless men can go.
The churches of Melbourne's Eastern Suburbs, specifically in the City of Maroondah have decided to make their spaces available to the homeless men, on a rotating, nightly basis, and to provide an evening and breakfast meal. The program is called Winter Shelter, and you can read about it, and volunteer your time by visiting the website http://wintershelter.org.au and see how it’s changing the world, for the homeless men of Maroondah. With a warm place to sleep, supportive people, and hot, nourishing food, their winter will be very different from what they expected.