Bayside Transformations needs $150,000 as landlord puts property on market

From famous faces to every day mums and dads getting a second chance, this rare rehab has saved lives. Now, the only shining light in the Wide Bay’s drug crisis faces closure.

It’s housed an Olympian, a reality TV star and countless mums, dads and teens who would have died or spent their lives in and out of jail had Bayside Transformations not been there.

Now, after 12 years of helping people recover from their addictions, Hervey Bay’s Bayside Transformations is facing closure unless it can come up with $150,000 which will enable the team to buy the Torquay treatment centre.

Bayside Transformations Director Tina Davie told the Chronicle the property, owned by the Baptist Union, was on the market and she desperately hoped enough funds would be raised so the organisation could the property could be purchased by her organisation to keep the rehabilitation centre operating.

The not-for-profit receives financial support from kind-hearted members of Bayside Christian Church and other locals and businesses along with generating its own income through vegetable production for clubs and a line of condiments sold at local markets.

This barely covers the bills and the organisation is still at least $150,000 short however and fear a developer will soon snap the prime property up.

Over the years, Transformations has helped thousands of people, men and women alike, recover from addiction and had saved the community an untold fortune in court, prison and hospital costs, Ms Davie said.

Emotional accounts from participants including Olympic swimmer Dan Smith, who was in the grips of drug addiction - his father having to pay off drug dealers to save his son’s life - before he found Transformations, turned his life around and ended up competing at Rio, have been well documented by the Chronicle.

The organisation has been renting the premises at Torquay Terrace and has been fundraising in the hopes of buying the property, with about $100,000 already saved.

The need another $150,000 in order to pay the deposit for the property, which is on the market for $1.2 million.

A pre-approval is already in place from the bank, pending the rest of the funds being raised.

About $100,000 has been spent by the organisation over the years, customising the premises to suit its programs.

“We are looking for public support,” Mrs Davie said.

The State Government was not able to provide the operation with a grant, she said, while hopes were still held for funding from the Federal Government.

In the meantime, Mrs Davie is hoping the Wide Bay community, which has been well served by the centre, will dig deep to help it produce the funds.

If the organisation is unable to purchase the premises, it could mean the end for Bayside Transformations, Mrs Davie said.

“It’s just not possible for us to find another suitable premises,” she said.

“There’s no where else in the Wide Bay area.”

On the premises is a 32-bed recovery centre with a residential space for men and a space for women.

Among the fundraising endeavours is a Go Fund Me page, which has so far raised more than $2000.

A flyer for the centre said it would be a “disaster” for the program to close or relocate, as it would leave hundreds of people seeking treatment without options.

The centre offers professional psychological therapy, recovery course work and the chance to upskill and become job ready.