Volunteer works to ensure local families have better opportunities

IT’S humbling to learn Sallie Hammond’s life’s work has been volunteering to ensure other families have the same opportunities she provided her own.

Sallie Hammond from St Mary is the manager at Fusion Western Sydney which connects people to help them build a sense of community.

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IT’S humbling to discover that Sallie Hammond’s life’s work – apart from raising a beautiful family – has been volunteering her time and skills to ensure other families have the same opportunities she provided her own.

For more than 30 years Ms Hammond has volunteered at Fusion Western Sydney – her introduction to the organisation as a 16 year old helping run a program for the homeless.

Her husband-to-be was one of the many kids who connected to the service that is described as having “a heart for the well-being of the most vulnerable”.

Sallie Hammond from St Mary is the manager at Fusion Western Sydney which connects people to help them build a sense of community.

Over the years, they both worked at Fusion. While her husband has since left, Ms Hammond continues her passion to support families in the region as the organisation’s manager, families training and support.

“I’ve always worked in an unpaid role but I get a lot of support from people who liked what we were doing and helped us out in lots of different ways,” she said.

“Over the years I’ve developed a families course, which has been taught all over Australia.

“Now we are training the trainers.”

Ms Hammond also has become a first-time author with a book on families, which complements the course.

“It’s just gone to the printer ... it’s called Families: Mine, Yours, Ours and it’s very much my story.

“Material from the course has been woven into my story – my children and my family.”

Ms Hammond said Fusion Western Sydney was unfunded and the work done by volunteers. “We really are run on the smell of an oil rag,” she admitted.

Mrs Hammond’s ongoing work reflects the qualities of the Pride of Australia: to celebrate and acknowledge the remarkable contribution of members of the Australian community.

Nominate at prideofaustralia.com.au.

Details: fusionwesternsydney.org.au.