How you can help

If Soul Hub has a ‘secret sauce’, it’s our 220+ volunteers. With only one full time and six part-time staff members, we literally could not do what we do without our wonderful volunteers, so we try hard to support and appreciate them.

Help us support and appreciate our volunteers:

Volunteer Appreciation Week – $2,500
Soul Volunteer Appreciation week coincides with National Volunteer Week. It’s a week in which we celebrate every volunteer on every shift with food, gifts, certificates and special guests from our larger Soul family.

Volunteer End of Year Celebration – $5,000
The Soul Volunteer End of Year Celebration is a major Soul community event where the whole volunteer team comes together to celebrate what they achieved that year. It includes catering, entertainment, gifts, video production and a photographer. In December 2022, we held a wonderful rooftop celebration to honour our hardworking volunteers, which they’re still talking about!

Soul Hub is ‘more than a meal’. We offer our guests a wide range of services, including medical, mental health, social work, haircuts, and more. Many of these services are provided by volunteers, but some involve an associated ongoing cost:

Guest Laundry Service – $2,500
The Soul Laundry is a daily service for our guests sleeping rough or without proper laundry facilities. Clothing, linen and blankets are washed, dried and returned the next day neatly folded in a tough, reusable bag. This sponsorship covers costs for washers, dryers, detergents, bags and equipment maintenance.

Guest SmartRecovery Program – $5,000
SmartRecovery is an effective weekly small group recovery program for guests with drug and alcohol addictions. This sponsorship contributes to facilitator training and accreditation, group resources, tea, coffee, equipment and administration costs.

Multiplication
Soul Hub is non-government funded and we rely on the generosity of Newcastle for our existence. It’s important that we show the community what we do for our guests. By showing locals what we do, it encourages them to get involved and support us. Each Taste of Soul event provides 80 people with a Soul Hub experience:

Taste of Soul Experience – $2,000
Those who attend a Taste of Soul Experience often say, “Wow, I had no idea Soul Hub did all that!” They also leave with a passionate enthusiasm to get involved as a donor or volunteer. Help us multiply this effect by sponsoring Taste of Soul meals, drinks, marketing, administration and printing.

Soul Hub has many practical needs. Things that cost more than you think but we cannot do without. By sponsoring these practical needs, you create direct expense savings, allowing money raised to go directly to the coal face of working with vulnerable people:

Waste removal – $4,149 a year (or $345 a month)
Photocopying/printing expenses – $4,600 a year (or $383 a month)

We run several major events, including Friday Chill, which, for many years, Orica, NCIG and PRD Nationwide have sponsored. Soul is also looking for sponsorship for a number of key events in our annual activity cycle:

• Sleepout for Soul (Major fundraiser) – Major sponsor $10,000 / Key supporter $4,000
• Soul Hub Raffle (Financial or in-kind sponsorship of our major prize) – $5,000
• The Story of Soul Calendar – Sponsor a month for $1,000

We offer our guests a wide range of services, including a sponsored Social Work Hub (sponsored by ElectroDry, Orica and Bondi Chai).

There are several important areas focused on life transformation that we’d like to move into. But, they have significant costs attached to them:

• A Transition Housing Program with case management support
• A Guest Internship Program
• A Prison Post Release Support Program

“Port Waratah Coal Services have partnered with Soul Cafe to provide mental health support services on the cafe floor for many years. Not only can guests have a meal in a friendly environment, but when they need it, they can talk to a qualified mental health practitioner and get support with referrals to health services. When a person is in crisis, it’s so important that supportive communities like Soul Café exist and we’re enormously proud to play a small role in shaping that ecosystem.”
Trudie Larnach – Manager Sustainability & Corporate Affairs, PWCS 

Soul Hub has partnered with many generous individuals, community groups and businesses looking for a one-off or regular charity partner. If you’re looking for a charity partner and would like to fundraise on behalf of Soul Hub, we would love to support you any way we can.

That support might possibly include:

• Attendance at or participation in the event
• Speaking at the event
• Provision of signage and promotional items at the event
• Acknowledgement and/or promotion of the event
• Technical fundraising support
• Provision of an authority to fundraise

Workplace giving is a great way to support Soul Hub. Also known as payroll giving, this program allows staff to donate a portion of their pre-tax salary, which your company can then match to double your impact in supporting vulnerable people.

We love to build enduring, mutually beneficial relationships with our valued sponsors and to acknowledge their essential contribution to our charity. We’d love to hear how we can foster a mutual relationship with you.

Here are some of the things we can do:

• Public, multimedia acknowledgement of your support
• Soul Hub tours for your team, family and friends
• Hosting you at our Volunteer Team Meets (morning tea) or for lunch at Soul Hub
• Provide volunteer experiences for you and your team
• Provide a Soul Presentation at your venue for your team
• Speak at one of your events
• Record a video for you

The only limit to our mutually beneficial relationship is creativity!