Jenan Taylor
28 February 2023
A Boronia parishioner who recently won a 10 years’ service award for volunteering with a Christian housing provider says her faith compelled her to give back to the community.
Dawne Hedges is a member of St Paul’s Boronia and has been helping out at non-profit Habitat for Humanity Victoria in Kilsyth South for 10 years.
Ms Hedges said after coming to terms with her husband’s passing she reflected on what God had blessed her with, and felt drawn to helping out in the social housing sector.
The kilometres clocked up on her speedometer attest her commitment.
Ms Hedges who lives in an outer south eastern suburb of Melbourne travels 30 kilometres to church in Boronia and to her volunteering role in Kilsyth South, and back.
Her contributions at Habitat for Humanity Victoria have been such that the organisation recently awarded her for it.
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Ms Hedges does a weekly shift in the organisation’s Kilsyth repair, recycle and resell op shop where she interacts with customers and with the people the organisation builds or improves houses for.
She said the work cemented for her the desperation around the need for housing and the need to help people experiencing those situations.
“As someone who’s always lived in a secure home, and whose children have a secure home and loving upbringing, it’s hard to understand how they could be in such circumstances,” Ms Hedges said.
The University of NSW reported in November 2022 that more than half a million Australian households were experiencing unmet housing needs.
They were either homeless, living in overcrowded homes or were spending more than 30 per cent of their income on rent.
According to the analysis, families were over represented among people having housing stress.
Ms Hedges said that through her activities she derived a renewed sense of purpose and of having found family other than her biological family.
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“In this situation, I have a church family, my friendship group family, my Habitat family, and then there are the regulars I have contact with through the work,” she said. “It might all be in a different form, but it’s all very necessary to make your life feel worthwhile.”
Also involved with her church’s Guild and Over 40s friendship groups, Ms Hedges said her service had captured the attention and ongoing interest of several of her fellow parishioners.
St Paul’s Guild leader Diane Collyer said that she and others had become regular shoppers at the Habitat for Humanity Victoria op shop, while two of the friendship group members were now also volunteering there.
Ms Collyer said even though Ms Hedges lived a considerable distance from the local area, her endeavours helped her to keep her close connections with St Paul’s and others in Boronia and Kilsyth.
“It means her heart’s with us, which is wonderful because she’s a cherished part of our group and of our church family,” Ms Collyer said.
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