Hundreds of families desperate for charities’ back to school support

The cost of living scourge has forced charities to turn away hundreds of desperate families as they face mounting pleas for help before the return to school.

Hundreds of additional families desperate for financial help to cover school costs have been turned away from charities struggling to keep up with spiking demand fuelled by rising prices.

The cost of living scourge is plaguing Victorian parents as prices for essential supplies, such as school uniforms and calculators, increase compared to 2022.

Organisations such as the Footscray-based Les Twentyman Foundation, which aims to provide children — including vulnerable students — with equal access to education, have been forced to cap the number of students they can assist with $150,000 in funding at 650. It comes as hundreds of other families are reportedly pleading for assistance at “never before seen” levels.

Calls for help to the program have spiked by 63 per cent since 2020.

Meanwhile, in just six months, the St Vincent de Paul Society’s Victorian metropolitan call centre has recorded a 22 per cent jump in the number of new calls from parents needing financial support.

Requests from families already receiving funding for parenting and school-related costs rose by 36 per cent, and demand is set to double within the next two months.

Les Twentyman, founder of his namesake organisation, said more parents than ever have reached out for help from its annual Back to School program, placing “enormous” strain on the foundation ahead of the 2023 school year.

Addicus, 11, Les Twentyman, Lenoir, 15, David Glenny, Celeste, 14, and Uaria, 11. Picture: Josie Hayden

“In the 34 years we have been running the Back To School program, we have never seen it as difficult as it is today financially for parents to get their kids to school,” he said.

“We have families who have very little being asked to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for books, calculators, computers and uniforms.”

The foundation’s chief executive Paul Burke said: “We are seeing more and more families needing help every year and it breaks the heart of all of us at the Foundation when we are forced to turn families away as we do not have the resources to help everyone”.

St Vincent de Paul Society Victoria chief executive Paul Turton said some parents “simply can’t cope” with rising back-to-school costs.

“Our volunteers have said you can hear the grief in parents’ voices because they can’t give their children what they need.”

Vinnies last year spent $720,000 on educational assistance to cover costs such as uniforms, shoes, school fees, learning materials and laptops.

It comes after the Herald Sun’s analysis of 2023 school fee schedules showed parents are being slugged hundreds of extra dollars in tuition fees at Victorian Catholic and independent schools.

Finder’s most recent Parenting Report found that almost one in five parents would switch their kids out of private school and send them to public school to ease financial stress.

Data from educational consulting firm Futurity estimates that it costs about $2300 on average to send a child to primary school, and $4200 to send a student to secondary school.

Stay at home father-of-four David Glenny said financial assistance from the Les Twentyman Foundation had been a “godsend”, with prices continuing to rise as he prepared to spend $15,000 in tuition alone to send three kids to public secondary school this year.

“Over the past few years, there has been a marked increase in school-related costs for the kids, and we are looking at school books between $60 and 80 for each class, computers are $700, and a basic school uniform is $350.

“As a family we are careful with what we spend and how we spend it, but it is a real struggle at the moment with the cost of everything rising.

“It is why we are grateful for the help and aware that there are many families in the same situation, and we thank goodness we have organisations like Les’s and his Foundation to help.”