Volunteers roll up their sleeves at Christmas

Oasis Crisis Accommodation is home for 13 young people between the ages of 16-21. Many of the young people who stay with us are estranged from family and lack strong social networks and support systems. This can make the Christmas period, a time when everyone is busy visiting family and friends, a particularly hard time.

Thanks to volunteers we are able to help make their time in Crisis a little brighter. Each night we run a dinner program that sees home style/family meals prepared for the residents. The program aims to provide healthy and nutritious meals to young people staying with us, in a family like environment, helping them to establish bonds with peers, staff and volunteers. The program also encourages young people to gain simple skills in the kitchen by actively being involved with the preparation process.

Late last year we put the above call out to our network of supporters asking if anyone had any extra time over the Christmas/New Year period to volunteer to cook dinner as part of the Crisis Accommodation Dinner Program.

The response was overwhelming with more than 80 people putting their hand up to get involved in less than a day!

The team of youth workers were so grateful for the extra support and reported that the young people not only were excited to see new faces each day, they were also eager to know what was being cooked each evening and became willing to try new foods; which anyone with teenagers knows, can be challenging at the best of times!

We are so thankful to all our wonderful supporters and volunteers who continually commit to help further the cause of Oasis and ensure that the young people who access our service have a safe place to rebuild their lives.

If you would like to get involved with the dinner program or any other volunteer opportunity at Oasis please email oasis.volunteers@aue.salvationarmy.org