With the clear days and beautiful blue skies it is hard to believe the bitter cold snaps of a night. As the temperature drops below 3 degrees tonight I ask you to take a moment to think about the 104,600 homeless Australians, including the homeless population in the Hawkesbury.

Did you know that 30% of street sleeping homeless in Sydney and 16% in Melbourne have suffered hypothermia, frostbite or trenchfoot. And that Rough sleepers have an average life expectancy of 42 years compared to national average 74 for men and 79 for women.

What would $68 buy you today? A dinner out, a couple of Albums from Itunes, some good books to read? $68 buys a swag for the homeless to use as their shelter from the harsh weather conditions throughout winter.

I have included an exert from www.swags.org.au website to provide further information. I know many people do a lot of good things for their community which I support. If you would also like to be one of those people that feel like giving up the value of a meal out or an Itunes Album or two today visit www.swags.org.au and make a difference to someone else’s life today.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post,
Rachael 🙂

“Swags for Homeless is a national not for profit charity and is winner of the 2011 Australian Human Rights award for best Community Organisation. This is one of Australia’s highest honours.

Testament to quality, the Backpack Bed™ has won 3 global product design awards including the Worlds largest and most prestigious product design award. The German 2011 Red Dot “Best of the Best” – 4433 entries from 60 countries. Past winners are Rolls Royce, Apple Inc. and Mercedes Benz.

• Run 100% by unpaid volunteers
• 3000+ Backpack Beds (swags) made in only 12 months
• Funded 100% by public donors – LIKE YOU
• Only 1.89% of funds went to overheads (ASIC Audit March 2009)
• Let’s see any charity do that! Your money actually helps people.

Swags for Homeless distributes the World’s ONLY fire retardant Backpack Bed™ (swag) to homeless around Australia and the World.

80% of families are turned away from shelters tonight while 60% of individuals are turned away also.* However, 100% are turned away from 98% of towns around
Australia – simply because there is no solution. So what do you give tonight?

Salvation Army, Mission Australia, St. Vincent de Paul, Uniting Care, Rosies, Ozenham, Hanover, Anglicare plus 150+ other charities around Australia agree our famous Backpack Bed™ (swag) is an effective and dignified interim crisis measure.

Source: http://swags.org.au/