Providing a pathway from Homelessness in Ballarat

BreezeWay Meals Program, established 20 years ago, serves 64 meals daily, without Government funding, to Ballarat’s severely disadvantaged. However it has outgrown current facilities. Alfredton Rotary and Uniting Ballarat will create a commercial kitchen and cafe space, relocating the program to a larger, safer, more accessible space, allowing hospitality skills training to our community's most disadvantaged people. Office space enabling support workers to consult easily with clients and extra training space, creates further training possibilities. We will also create a warm, secure resting place for rough-sleepers during extreme cold, extreme heat, flooding and storms. Toilet, shower and laundry facilities included.

Our community's severely disadvantaged people identified lack of skills and community connections as major factors in their disadvantage. This project aims to address these needs with training facilities and the eventual creation of a cafe that is open to the public, staffed by participants in Uniting's programs, thus enhancing client well-being, confidence, independence and living skills. The BreezeWay relocation provides improved safety and accessibility for clients, increased capacity to meet demand for meals, and safer, more functional kitchen premises to sustain the program.
A safe extreme weather space has obvious benefits to our rough sleepers and further creates community connectedness.