Help service provides a welcome relief

By Melissa Grant
LIFE would just be way too hard if it wasn’t for 4Cs.
That’s how one young dad described the support of the emergency relief service on a DVD screened at the centre’s open day.
And councillors, politicians and people from community groups got a better understanding of the organisation’s work in the shire when they gathered at 4Cs Main Street headquarters on Friday.
Pastor Don Press said 4Cs did its best to ensure that people who used the service didn’t feel shamed. “We think it’s our role to bring that love and honour to people,” he said. “The bottom line is how can we raise a person to a place where they can make it by themselves?”
4Cs is servicing about 180 clients a month, however one person may show up who needs to feed another four family members.
4Cs administration manager Sue Friend said the centre had recently experienced a quiet patch, but was back to being as busy as ever. “We experienced a quiet patch around July/August when the $600 stimulus package was given to families,” she said.
4Cs not only feeds hungry families – it also provides education, a NILS (no interest loan scheme) and offers the services of a professional financial planner as well as referrals to other crisis services.
And it has a “house of hope”, a three-bedroom house for crisis accommodation.
Ms Friend said the open day was a great opportunity to make the rest of the community aware of what services the emergency relief service offered. “We’ve grown so much over 13 years from offering food relief to a wider spectrum of services,” she said.