Lions Club, Innerwheel, Soroptomists, CWA and Rotary Club join together to form Albany Homeless Focus Group

Five Albany community service groups have banded together to chip away at the hardships faced by the homeless people of the region, with the first of their efforts set to kick off later this month.

The Albany branches of Lions Club, Innerwheel, Soroptomist, CWA and Rotary Club have joined forces to form the Albany Homeless Focus Group to help provide practical support to those living rough.

Lions Club president Jamie Mawer said the idea stemmed from a desire to help the disadvantaged people of the Great Southern on a bigger scale.

“We’ve got a lot of service organisations in town,” he said.

“All of us are smaller than we’d like to be, and we tend to be older than we’d like to be, so when we wanted to do something, I thought the best way to do that would be to get all of us together.

“We had a meeting to discuss the idea and then after more meetings and feedback to make sure everyone was on board, we all said, ‘yes let’s do this’, and now meet regularly.”

The first of the group’s projects is a sausage sizzle fundraiser on June 21, the profits of which will go towards purchasing backpack beds and blankets for Pivot Support Service’s 800 community hub clients.

Pivot chief executive Moira Watson said the practical items are a gamechanger.

“We are really grateful for the support of the different people and the offer of blankets and backpack beds is really going to be useful for our client group, because they’re really in need,” she said.

“This sort of generosity within the community just helps Pivot keep going, supplying the services that they need to supply.”

Two bigger projects, a mobile laundry facility and the construction of 12 homes, are also on foot but yet to be officially finalised.

Mr Mawer said as well as the immediate benefits of the project, he hopes a bigger movement can be sparked.

“There’s also another reason for doing all this, of course, which is apart from helping the support services and people,” he said.

“We hope these are things that can capture the imagination of the people who live in Albany.

“So, if people want to help in these areas, helping the disadvantaged, help the homeless, they can see we’ve got some traction and get a bit inspired.

“If they want to join our clubs, whichever one, that’s great or they can do their own thing — we just want the work done.”

The sausage sizzle fundraiser will be held at Bunnings Warehouse Albany on June 21 from 8am to 4pm.