Centacare’s School Savvy promised funding by Labor and LNP as the race is on for votes
The LNP has doubled Labor’s commitment to Far North’s busiest charity school supply service, ensuring no matter who forms the next state government, the essential program will receive funding.
Cairns
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The LNP has doubled Labor’s commitment to Far North’s busiest charity school supply service, ensuring no matter who forms the next state government, the essential program will receive funding.
On Wednesday morning LNP spokeswoman for cost of living, Deb Frecklington and the LNP’s candidate for Cairns, Yolonde Entsch, announced a commitment of $1.4m to the School Savvy program.
Ms Entsch said she listened to thousands of families and heard about the challenges they faced in Cairns and throughout Far North Queensland.
“CentaCare FNQ have been running an amazing program without funding because they saw a dire need and decided to do something about it,” she said.
“Imagine what CentaCare FNQ can achieve when the School Savvy program is guaranteed funding over four years.”
The popular school supply program has nearly doubled its support this year, assisting 1080 families and 2330 students, up from 567 families and 1400 students last year.
Ms Frecklington said there was no greater issue facing residents then the cost of living crisis.
“What we need is to have practical solutions for mums and dads across this great state, this program has helped more than 2200 students in Queensland alone,” she said.
“The guaranteed funding we are announcing today, over the next four years, will mean thousands of kids will be able to be helped”.
At the start of the year, the Centracare back-to-school shops in Cairns and nearby areas were “inundated” as families found it especially hard to afford school supplies after the effects of Cyclone Jasper and flooding.
Centacare senior manager Andrea Obeyesekere said while families often experience a “high cost period” after Christmas holidays, the organisation had noticed a “year-round” demand as the ongoing cost of living challenges.
“Over the years and because of the growing number of people facing homelessness and the cost of living crisis we’ve seen the project required all year round,” she said.
The increased demand resulted in the charity program adding two additional locations for pop up shops, as well as a call out for additional operational space to enable expansion of services.
The LNP’s announcement follows one from Tourism Minister and Cairns MP Michael Healy, who said last month if he were re-elected he would ensure a commitment of $680,000 over four years starting in 2025, for the “much-needed program”.
“It gives a bit more security to the people at CentaCare who do a fantastic job and I would love to be able to make further commitments down the road,” he said.
The program, which primarily relies on donations, also launched its new School Savvy campaign last month, seeking donations of uniforms, stationery, and school supplies ahead of the 2025 school year.
“This initiative is about giving every child the opportunity to thrive,” Ms Obeyesekere said.
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