Kindness For Kids In Care 2023 Toy appeal. #kindnessforkidsiscare

and when do you want it. So I'm just so grateful to our sponsors that are here today because we can't do what we do here today if we haven't got any money to do it with. I'd also like to thank the Morayfield and Caboolture community, the Moreton Bay community. We have been emptying our toy box down here in the food court every few days of toys that have been donated directly from the community. So Morayfield Shopping Centre is going to speak about that more when they come up, but I'd like to thank the community on behalf of Keeping Care. I'd also like to acknowledge Michelle Rigger's family who are here today, Glen Rigger and the family. Michelle was the original person who started this foundation and she did it for years and years and years on her own. I don't know how she did it. We now have a whole team that do it. So I'd just like to acknowledge, we lost Michelle last year and I'd just like to acknowledge her family who have come along today to continue their support. So thank you Glen and the family. Also in the last 12 months since we took over the toy drive, one thing for Keeping Care is people's support of our fantastic sponsors and the shopping centre and the sports club and our local members. We've been able to extend Keeping Care to not only do a toy drive. Keeping Care also has a suitcase drive. So when children come into care, often they arrive with their things in a garbage bag. So we provide them with a suitcase so that these things go into a suitcase and so money that's donated towards Keeping Care also goes towards our suitcase drive. We also have a drive for a hope chest. So the hope chest is basically like a glory box. So when children are going into independent living, when they're going out of that foster system into independent living, we can give them a chest full of things that can help them on with their life. Things like softens and all the things that you give your kids when they move out of home. We now give packs for the kids in this area when they move out of that foster care system into independent living to help them move on with their lives. We're also extending this year our help to the local police. The local police have contacted us in regards to we have children in our area that are living on the streets. They're living with their families in tents all over the communities and this is happening everywhere. We're trying to help the police break that cycle and try and give the kids some normality. So toys that we're unable to use or we don't need to use for this toy drive will also be given to the police for them to be able to take directly to these children that are in care or that are basically living rough so that they've got some normality in their life and so they can see that people do care about them and this community does care about them. So those initiatives are all things that have grown from this toy drive that Michelle Rigger initially set up. So we're getting there and we can't do it without the support of our members. I would like to thank Terry Young, the member for Longman, for coming today. He's a massive supporter of ours as well. I'd like to thank Mark Ryan who not only supports us himself but he also allows staff to help us. I'd like to thank Peter Flannery, the mayor for Moreton Bay. He's also a supporter of ours and we have so many, we have every level of government behind us. We are just so happy with the support that we get from this community. I'd like to now hand over to Becca Curtis. Now Becca Curtis is a massive support for us here at the Shopping Centre. She does everything from emptying the box for us, running around, getting us wrapping, doing all sorts of things. So thank you, Becky. So in the spirit of a greener toy drive that was created by Michelle Rigger along with Mark Ryan over 10 years ago where my customers can donate gifts, toys, anything they would like to purchase for the end of the four-kid hour. Now Moreton Hill Shopping Centre has been proudly donating to this initiative for over 10 years. The Department of Child Safety together with Finance for Kids in Care helped facilitate the project and they purchased the funds or with funds they purchased the gifts and they donated giving children from newborn to 18 years something somewhere in our access at the time. Last year over $18,000 was raised along with an abundance of over 700 children's gift of Christmas time. This year we're looking at raising over $20,000 which would make near a thousand kids' Christmas that extra special. So given the current economic factors we're pretty surprised and overwhelmed with what we have received this year. Customers have dug very very deep into their pockets. It's hard during this time everything's going up but they have found extra money to donate to other people not to keep everything in their own pockets so we're just amazed at the community. I would like to make a special mention to Prue. This woman is a firecracker. I don't know how she does it. She took this on over two years ago last year and this year keeping it together and has made it. You have impacted so many by what you have done. You have created this entourage of people who are willing to help and give everything they have. So to you we couldn't say thank you enough. You have done an amazing amazing job. She's a woman of many maps. She's a mother, a family person, always doing things with her family, good friend. She's a courageous businesswoman. She has her thinking on many parts and you have driven her to the end limits and we are very very grateful. On behalf of Morrison Children's Centre I'd just like to say we understand the importance of coming together for a community event and other community at Christmas time and we are very honoured and proud to be a part of it. So thank you very much. Thank you. I can't say honestly how much support Morayville Shopping Centre is for us. So thank you and I'd like to now hand over to Mark Bryant. Thanks very much Prue and Merry Christmas everyone. You know it's not Christmas until we do the official handover for the Kids in Care Christmas Toy Appeal which is run so well by the Kindness for Kids in Care organisation in partnership with the Morayville Shopping Centre and I did want to acknowledge Glen and his family. You know who would have thought over a decade ago when Michelle Rigger started this with a lot of supporters that it would grow into the biggest and most successful and most generous community toy appeal at Christmas in the state. You know what a magnificent legacy for Michelle and it just continues to grow and grow and grow. So Glen we love you and your family and we miss Michelle but I know she'll be looking down with great smiles at the moment mate. But there's no surprise though that this is the biggest and most successful and most generous toy appeal in the state because we've got a great community here. People who know that there are people doing it tough and want to help. People who know that generosity is the Christmas spirit. Generosity is the thing that puts a smile on a child's face at Christmas. So to all of the sponsors to Morayfield Shopping Centre and its owner Leader Holdings and to Prue and the Kindness for Kids in Care organisation. Thank you very much for your generosity. Thank you very much for showing the world that the Christmas spirit is alive and well here in our community. Thank you for coming Peter. Peter's our Mayor for Norton Bay. We've done a hell of a lot of work so congratulations. Thank you for letting me come on be part of this and thanks for the invitation. It's very very good because I'd like to acknowledge Terry and Michael for being here. Three levels of government so it's pretty important, pretty impressive that you're three levels of government each three years. So that's how important this initiative is to show the community and to show these kids particularly that the community does care about them. They're not, they're not, they haven't slipped through the cracks. We want to embrace them, wrap our arms around them and by giving gifts at Christmas time it shows that people outside their immediate circle of interaction do care about them and they're important part of society. So congratulations to Prue and the Kindness for Kids in Care program. I've just become a lot more aware recently with Kids in Care and going to a few workshops as well so it's becoming very reminding to me about the importance that Foster Caring does in that community and we need more foster carers out there so the people in this please get on board with it. Congratulations council play a little part and just provide the big box. I haven't seen the box yet but I heard it's a pretty impressive box to get the toys to come into and then you know as Mark said the community of Morton Bay specifically, so please get together and help each other out and see where Christmas is going at the time they're giving it and I've been together and that's so thank you for that and you've got full support of the city of Morton Bay behind you. Thank you very much. Anyway it's great to be here. It's my fourth time here now. I've been in Parliament for four and a half years and one of the first vocals I got of course is from Michelle and I've known Michelle for about 25 years. No matter what she does she does it 100 percent. She's the most wonderful person and the commitments she showed to our community in so many different ways can't be undersold. So Glenn, mate we miss her just like you do buddy. I can also say that Christmas is about generosity but it's also about hope and one thing I do love about this is that there will be kids that are going to receive a gift that they weren't expecting and the good thing about that is that they may have felt hopeless that the world was not a good place, they weren't in a good place and all of a sudden they see an act of generosity and that sparks hopes and hopes in the lives of these kids that so much deserve it and we live in a country that is very very blessed compared to a lot of other countries but we aren't doing it tough in this country at the moment but the thing I love about Christmas is that people can still put that aside and just go you know what I need to put someone else before myself and that's the greatest thing you can ever do is put the needs of someone else before your own. So people ask me in parliament what's the community like that you serve and I say I reckon it's the most generous community in Australia. Chaplaincy units prove our community just rallies behind. So to Glenn, to all the people who've organised, all the businesses have supported, we've got record giving this year which has just been amazing considering the economic climate. So well done to our community, we love you, have a great Christmas and have a very safe new year. Thanks Terry and just to touch on something Terry said, the quality of the gifts that have been dropped off at this shopping centre you only have to look around and see the quality of the things that people are dropping off into our donations. You know full skateboards, there's a swimming pool here somewhere, you know there are fantastic things that have been given through this community that is just fantastic. I'd now like to ask Karen McGrath on behalf of the Queensland Department of Child Safety to come forward so we can sort of officially do the handover of the toys for the department. Merry Christmas everybody, thank you for coming this morning. I guess what I wanted to say from Child Safety is that just to let you know that the toys that you have donated, this community has donated, is going to the most vulnerable disadvantaged children in this community. So these are children who can't live safely with their parents and they experience trauma and loss that we would never wish for any child and no child should really experience those kind of life experiences. They grow up fast and they are often and usually robbed of some of those simple childhood wonders that we wish for our children. So Christmas is a time where magic is possible and thanks to the tireless efforts throughout the year, not just recently but throughout the whole year, of the Kindness for Kids in Care Foundation. Our kids in care in the Coopooltra and in the Morayfield area, they will have a little magic this Christmas thanks to you and thanks to their efforts. So let me tell you what I know about the Kindness for Kids in Care Foundation. They are a tireless small group of women who have their own jobs, their own families, they are the busiest women you've ever met and yet they have fundraised throughout the year and shopped and then they'll all go back and wrap over 700 presents for 700 children who we have gathered the wishes what they would like and they've gone out and tried to buy a gift that would match. It's amazing. They are amazing and what is also amazing is the generosity of the sponsors that they have managed to fundraise an amazing amount of money from. Thank you very much. I know they've been mentioned already and more importantly, thank you. Thank you to this local community who, in spite of the incredibly terrible cost of living, have managed to donate the most presents of astonishing quality. It just makes my throat thicken when I come and look at and we give those children their gifts individually from their worker. It's amazing. We don't tell them it's from a, you know, a foundation. They just think it's a bit of Christmas magic. So, thank you. It's important, this work. It's so simple and I really want to thank you on behalf of Child Safety for Ayfield and Caboolture Service Centers for your amazing effort and to thank the Kindness for Kids in Care Foundation, which literally is about six women. It's amazing. Thank you very much. Merry Christmas. I know I'm going to have a much merrier Christmas thanks to today. Thanks, Pam. That's fantastic. So, just to sum it up today, you know, as we've said, we do live in a fantastic community. When people are giving Caboolture a bad name, they obviously are not invested in this community. We are trying for kids in care to break the cycle. That's really what this foundation is about, is breaking the cycle. We believe that you can't complain about your house being broken into if you're not doing anything about it. The way you do, the way you do something about it, is you break the cycle so these kids don't feel hopeless. This is what we're for. So, the more initiatives that we can start to give these kids that ability to not feel hopeless, to give them that little bit of hope like Terry spoke about and Mark and Peter spoke about, that's what we're all about. And honestly, sometimes for those kids, just that one little thing can be the difference to break that cycle. So, thank you to everybody for your support. I hope I haven't left anyone out. If I have, it's definitely not deliberate. So, and once again, thank you to the Shopping Centre for everything you do here. It's just fantastic. Thank you so much.