If you have further questions or concerns, you can contact us via our Get in Touch page or email us at admin@commsatwork.org.
Communities at Work is one of Canberra’s largest not-for-profit organisations and the largest provider of children’s services serving the Canberra community. We also provide services for seniors, people living with disabilities, people experiencing hardship, and disadvantaged students.
Each Christmas, Communities at Work helps over 1,000 individuals by
offering access to essential food and gifts to ensure that everyone in need gets
something to make their and their family’s Christmas special.
Each year, our volunteers and staff set up specially decorated Christmas rooms in the Gungahlin and Tuggeranong Community Centres called “Christmas Caves”, where we display all the donations. Clients of our community pantry or crisis support services are invited to visit the rooms and choose gifts for themselves and their families.
We check a person’s Medicare card to confirm the number of people in a family.
This indicates how many gifts a person can collect.
No, gifts are not wrapped, as people want to see what they are choosing. We provide wrapping paper and cards for people to use if they want to wrap up their chosen gifts.
You can download the donation list here. We’re often short of Christmas food and gifts for teenagers and adults. If stuck for ideas, gift cards are useful ($20-$30 lots).
You can drop off your donations at the below sites.
We’ll update the location list as and when other places/organisations/shops begin accepting donations for Communities at Work.
This is an award-winning Christmas fundraising drive set up by radio station Mix106.3 and Transport Canberra. They encourage the community to donate to our Appeal and then drive a specially decorated bus for 2-3 weeks in December to pick up donations from schools, businesses, government departments and community groups.
In short, they ‘pack the bus’ with Christmas donations for our Christmas Caves!
Last year, we collected over 10,000 gifts!!! We’re looking forward to doing even more this year!
You can drop off your donations directly to Communities at Work (Mon-Fri 9 am
to 4 pm) at:
• Communities at Work Tuggeranong: Tuggeranong Community Centre,
245 Cowlishaw Street, Greenway
• Communities at Work Gungahlin: Gungahlin Community Centre, 47 Ernest
Cavanagh Street, Gungahlin
• Communities at Work Weston Creek: John Turner Building, 172 Dixon Drive,
Holder
We accept donations at all times of the year. We provide people with free food, hygiene items, bus tickets, pay for medical scripts, provide showers and shower packs, give information and referrals, and assist in any way we can.
Find out more about how we help people in need here.
