Last year, when I decided to take a break from the pressure cooker that can sometimes be Christmas with family, I started looking for holiday volunteering slots in Melbourne. Of the several I reached out to, I either didn’t receive a response or I was met with the uniform response that they were closed over Christmas and New Years.
This was completely different from when I was living in New York three years ago. It was the Thanksgiving holiday. A friend and I had just watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, after which I trekked to the middle of Brooklyn to serve Thanksgiving dinner at a soup kitchen.
Through New York Cares, a non-profit that pairs volunteers with over a thousand charity organisations and schools throughout the city, I was able to complete an online training course while I was still in Australia. Once I passed, I selected a Jewish soup kitchen and food bank for Thanksgiving as well as one run through a Christian church in Manhattan for Christmas.
The rabbi and volunteer coordinators were lovely and accommodating, as were those less fortunate who came in for a holiday meal who asked me about my Aussie roots as I served their meals and topped up their drinks.
Hundreds of people passed through the large church for lunch that day and it felt good giving back to the community.
When Christmas came around, I was back in the kitchen working up a sweat dishing up vegetables. Hundreds of people passed through the large church for lunch that day and it felt good giving back to the community.
It was a shame then that I couldn’t repeat the experience back home in Australia.
“We close between December 21 to January 2,” came the response from Rosemary Kelly, Volunteer Coordinator at FareShare. “In fact it might surprise you to learn that many charities are closed around that time of year.”
Upon asking FareShare’s Communications Director Lucy Farmer for clarification, she said that they don’t provide direct food services, instead partnering with local charities to distribute food.
“We find local charities are very receptive to the needs of their communities so even if they are closed over Christmas, I am sure in most cases vulnerable people will have the opportunity to collect the food they need in advance,” she told me.
In trying to navigate the red tape that surrounds the concept of volunteering on Christmas in Australia, it would appear that most charities use third parties to dispense goods and food collected for the holiday.
In trying to navigate the red tape that surrounds the concept of volunteering on Christmas in Australia, it would appear that most charities use third parties to dispense goods and food collected for the holiday. This is in addition to many Australian charities wanting a long-term commitment, which a lot of people, me included, can’t manage. “It might be challenging as the charities that do open then are more likely to have their own regular volunteers to assist them,” Rosemary Kelly continued. In contrast, the great thing about volunteering through New York Cares was that many of their openings were one offs.
So instead of volunteering I decided to do a toy drive at my workplace. I remember seeing disability activist and author Carly Findlay that same Christmas Day, and I was incredulous. I asked her where, and she replied that it was at a church in Wodonga.
If a country town can muster enough volunteers - and, indeed, recipients - to warrant a soup kitchen on Christmas, surely a major city with a large homeless and food insecure population can.
By shutting over the holidays, the message these organisations seem to be sending is that everyone has a family to go home to for the holidays, which if the number of homeless are anything to go by, is not true.
I am lucky enough to be able to choose what I want to do on the holidays, whether it be travelling or volunteering. Not everyone has that freedom, so there should be some systems in place to allow those who do to really give back during the giving season.
Scarlett Harris is freelance writer
