Caitlin Does Us Proud - Tweed Australia Day Winner

Australia Day 26th January 2009

Congratulations to Caitlin McGibbon-Goodie for being selected as Tweed's Young Achiever in Community Services Australia Day Award Winner.

Caitlin, 16 years old, is one of our "You Have A Friend" volunteers and her serving brekkie to our friends on many Sundays in the Murwillumbah Budds Park was something the judges took into account. Also Caitlin's efforts in supporting our Gulu Walk, where she assisted Emma Walsh (another of our very dedicated youth volunteers), in raising over $1,000 for the children in Uganda, was a wonderful effort and also noted in her selection.

Well done Caitlin and we are all very proud of you.

"Brekkie" With Our Friends - Emma Walsh

The first breakfast I ever joined was one very cold Sunday winter morning. We arrived and unpacked the van and like nothing I had ever seen or expected the destitute people of Murwillumbah were a whole different experience. Considering their circumstances and the cold weather the vibe over breakfast that day was far worse than any person could deem. Though only few friends arrived for a meal it really was a bleak, melancholic experience. Since that first day I can gladly say there has been a substantial uplift in everything I had witnessed. From faces down at breakfast to a table full of singers and guitarists improvising songs about You Have a Friend I’m always glad to spend my Sunday breakfast with the people in the park. Seeing the smiles on their faces when we hand them a plate of food, or just say good morning is the most wholesome reason to keep coming back. I enjoy those Sundays of talking, cooking and music, and to think all it took was one big breakie, a cup of hot coffee and a smiling face to start off a conversation. You Have a Friend couldn’t have a more perfect title towards the volunteers and the breakie friends. Because that’s exactly what we all are, friends

Emma is a Year 10 student at a local school and has been involved with our charity and others for a few years now. She is always there to help and has been great with our friends and is a wonderful member of our team. She is also a budding photographer, as one of her photos shows. Keep it up Emma, we love you and so do our friends.

Welcome to You Have A Friend

“You Have A Friend”

has just passed its first five months as a registered charity and I am happy to say, after an initial settling in period, we feel we are well entrenched in the community and are achieving what we set out to do. That is:

• to support our friends in whatever way we can,


• to support our most generous volunteers who give so much of their time,


• to support our sponsors who provide so much and without you, we would not be able to assist our friends

Registering the charity, the paperwork, contacting sponsors, setting up the website, opening bank accounts, training our new volunteers and making sure that our friends are taken care of, all takes time and at last we believe we are well on top of those necessities.

I am very happy with the progress of our Murwillumbah Outreach.
Our “Thursday BBQ Lunches”, started on 8th May 2008, are proving very popular and we regularly support 50 or more friends and most days many of the youth, play touch-footie while the girls prepare the food most generously donated by a number of suppliers in Murwillumbah.

On the 6th July 2008, we began our regular “Murwillumbah Budd Park Sunday Brekkie” which is proving very popular with our friends, and an average of 15 – 20 people join us on the banks of the river each week for eggs, sausages, fruit, juice, tea, coffee and often other "goodies" provided by our vollies. Then, on some occasions it's a chat and sometime music supplied by the boys and girls!!

We started our 1st Coolangatta/Tweed Outreach with a “Sunday Brekkie” on the 12th October 2008. This is exciting in that we are steadily achieving our goals, which are to support our friends and the marginalised in the Tweed district. The brekkie menu is the same as that we supply the Murwillumbah “brekkie” crew.

Our Volunteer Base is now growing steadily and at present, we have 21 local volunteers supporting us in Murwillumbah as well as Tweed Heads and if anyone would like to join this most wonderful experience and volunteer with us, please visit our website, where you can contact us www.youhaveafriend.org.au

The “Tweed Gulu Walk” was run and organised by us and supports the displaced children in Uganda who are regularly abducted by the rebels.

We cannot thank our sponsors enough. You have been so generous to date and without you, there would be no "You Have A Friend" and in your own ways, you are doing so very much for our friends out there and I make sure they are aware who you are.

God Bless and thank you all so much.

From John and the "You Have A Friend" crew.