LocalKind Northern Beaches

Need help with your tax return? LocalKind is offering the **ATO Tax Help Program** at our Community Hub in Manly from **Tuesday 7 July**.

This free service is provided by trained ATO volunteers for people with simple tax affairs. Appointments are essential.

📍 LocalKind Community Hub, 52 Raglan Street, Manly
📞 Call 02 9977 1066 to book

Conditions apply.

LocalKind would like to say a big thank you to Manly Bowling Club for their generous donation of food last week.

It's always such a lovely surprise when an organisation recognises us in this way and turns up unexpectedly at our Drop-In Centre with bags full of food for our clients. This food will go straight back out into the community. Our clients include people experiencing homelessness, domestic violence, and financial hardship which more and more locals are finding themselves in as the cost of living continues to rise.

Thank you, Manly Bowling Club, for your support and generosity.

For anyone else on the Northern Beaches looking to support your neighbours in need, food donations can be dropped off at LocalKind, 52 Raglan Street, Manly, between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, Monday to Friday.

Refugee Week 2026 | A Million Stories

This Refugee Week (14–20 June), we join communities across Australia in celebrating the strength, resilience and contributions of people from refugee backgrounds.

The 2026 theme, "A Million Stories," marks a significant milestone: since 1947, Australia has welcomed more than one million refugees and humanitarian entrants, each with their own unique story of courage, hope and new beginnings.

This year also marks the 40th anniversary of Refugee Week in Australia, a movement that began here and is now recognised in countries around the world.

Behind every statistic is a person, a family, and a story. Refugee Week is an opportunity to reflect on the journeys of those who have sought safety, acknowledge the challenges they have overcome, and celebrate the many ways refugee communities have helped shape the diverse and vibrant Australia we know today.

As part of Refugee Week, Northern Beaches Multicultural Network and LocalKind invite you to join us for a Human Library event on 20 June. Through meaningful conversations with people from diverse backgrounds, you'll have the opportunity to hear personal stories, challenge assumptions, and build deeper understanding and connection within our community.

When: Saturday, 20 June | 9:30am – 12:30pm

Where: Warriewood Community Centre, Warriewood NSW

Cost: FREE (but bookings are essential for capacity) Register Here

Together, let's continue building communities where everyone feels welcomed, valued and able to belong.

Today we were honoured to welcome the Hon. Jodie Harrison MP, NSW Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, to LocalKind.

We appreciated the opportunity to speak with the Minister about the barriers community organisations face in delivering effective domestic and family violence services, and the importance of clear, safe and timely information sharing to better support victim-survivors.

The Minister spoke with us about CARAS, the Common Approach to Risk Assessment and Safety, NSW’s emerging framework to support more consistent recognition, assessment and response to domestic and family violence across the service system. We also valued hearing about the new information sharing guidelines and the broader work being undertaken across NSW to strengthen domestic and family violence responses.

Thank you, Minister Harrison, for taking the time to visit LocalKind, listen to our team, and share your insights with us. We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important conversation and to continue advocating for stronger, safer and more connected support for our community.

Every community is full of incredible, unseen stories. This Refugee Week, we have a unique opportunity to sit down and listen to a few that truly hit close to home.

You are warmly invited to the Northern Beaches Refugee Week Event: Human Library on Saturday, 20 June.

Instead of just reading about the refugee experience in the news, this event offers you to engage with real-life story holders. Local Northern Beaches residents will be generously opening up and sharing their personal journeys of fleeing their homelands and building a new life here in Australia.

Here are the details:

When: Saturday, 20 June | 9:30am – 12:30pm

Where: Warriewood Community Centre, Warriewood NSW

Cost: FREE (but bookings are essential for capacity)

Our MC for the morning is the brilliant writer and speaker An Ngo Lang. She’ll be guiding the event and sharing her own powerful story of fleeing with her family during the Fall of Saigon. Beyond the storytelling sessions, the morning will include live music, entertainment, and plenty of space for open discussion and community connection.

An Ngo Lang - Website http://anngolang.com/

It’s going to be a moving, eye-opening, and ultimately inspiring morning. We would love to see you there.

How to Join Us:
👉 Register Here https://events.humanitix.com/northern-beaches-refugee-week-event-human-library
Please note: While the event is free, spots are limited, so please make sure to register ahead of time.

This event is brought together by Northern Beaches Multicultural Network, LocalKind, Northern Sydney Local Health District Multicultural Service, TAFE NSW and Northern Beaches Mosman College.

We're hiring a Growth & Fundraising Manager on 3-6 month contract. If you'd like to work with a great grassroots charity and feel you can add value in the Northern Beaches area, please apply!

https://www.ethicaljobs.com.au/members/CEOCNB/growth-fundraising-manager

Help address disadvantage, homelessness, domestic violence, refugee settlement and family & youth.

Growth & Fundraising Manager - Job in Sydney - LocalKind Help grassroots charity LocalKind grow income, partnerships and impact in this 3–6 month fundraising manager contract role, supporting people facing hardship on the Northern Beaches.

Hey friends, just a quick reminder about something I’m running in Manly that may interest some of you.

Group guitar lessons are starting next Tuesday, and the first group is now coming together.

It’s a relaxed and welcoming space to learn, play, and connect with others through music.

If you’ve been curious about learning guitar, or used to play and would like to get back into it, this could be a great fit.

How it works:
Small groups (max 8 per group), so everyone gets attention
Structured teaching, you’ll understand why chords and music work, not just memorise shapes
Beginner friendly, while still valuable for more experienced players
Supportive atmosphere focused on confidence and enjoyment

💲 $20 per session
🎸 18+ | All levels welcome
🤝 Run through Local Kind Manly, with half of each session supporting local community initiatives

If it sounds like something you’d enjoy, or you’d just like more info, feel free to comment on this post at Lyceum Guitar Academy or send them a message anytime.

Paul

A huge thank you to Manly Community Pre-School for today’s generous donation of non-perishable food items.

After seeing our recent call-out for food donations, the preschool organised a community food drive and invited families to give what they could. The kindness and generosity shown by parents, staff, and children has been incredibly heartwarming.

It means so much to see the Northern Beaches community come together to support our most vulnerable members. And with the Pre-School sitting right behind us here in Manly, it feels even more special knowing our neighbours are thinking of us.

This food will go directly into our Produce Pantry, where it will be distributed to individuals and families experiencing homelessness, domestic violence, financial hardship, and food insecurity across the Northern Beaches.

Donations like this also create a sense of dignity and care. They remind people that their community sees them, supports them, and hasn’t forgotten them during some of the hardest moments of their lives.

Thank you, Manly Community Pre-School. Your support means we can continue providing essential food relief to people who need it most.

💚 CASE STUDY: Helping a Mother Rebuild Safety and Hope 💚

When a mother of two daughters first connected with LocalKind, she was living in a home shaped by fear, coercive control, emotional abuse, and financial abuse. Like many women experiencing domestic violence, she felt overwhelmed, isolated, and unsure how she could safely move forward while protecting her children.

Over the next six months, LocalKind’s Domestic & Family Violence team walked alongside the family every step of the way. Through trauma-informed case management, we helped her engage with the Staying Home Leaving Violence program so she and her children could remain safely in their home while the perpetrator was legally removed. We also supported her to access Victim Services, the Leaving Violence Program, and pro bono family law assistance through LocalKind’s legal service partnership.
Our team helped gather evidence to successfully obtain and uphold an AVO, supported her through court appearances and breach reporting, arranged lock changes to improve safety, and developed detailed safety plans for the family. We also advocated for school fees to be waived due to financial hardship and provided ongoing material aid and emotional support during some of the hardest months of her life.

Today, the family is living in greater safety and stability. The mother has regained control over her finances, returned to employment, and is beginning to rebuild her confidence and independence. Her daughters are now in a safer environment, with pathways into counselling support when the time is right.

This is the impact of compassionate, wraparound support — helping women and children move from fear and crisis toward safety, dignity, and hope. 💚

To learn more, see: https://localkind.org.au

For National Volunteer Week, our clients decided they wanted to give back to our volunteers. They did this by forming a band and, in no less than eight weeks, performed two beautiful renditions of Take Me Home, Country Roads and Lean on Me.

They performed as part of our National Volunteer Week event on Monday. The performance was highly anticipated by our volunteers and was by far the highlight of the event.

At the end of the event, one of our clients explained to a volunteer that they “wanted to sing Lean on Me specifically because our volunteers are the people they lean on every day”.

We think that says it all. Thank you to all LocalKind volunteers for letting our clients lean on you.

P.S The band is called the Howlers and they smashed it ❤️