LiveBetter’s Café Connect has raised over $2,500 for our Ronald McDonald House Orange (RMH), with 100% of proceeds staying local.

With Café Connect Chef, Jamie Stewart at the helm and an avid supporter of RMH Charities (also a volunteer himself), it became a lot more personal for him and his family once his own daughter utilised RMH facilities.

“LiveBetter and Café Connect have supported Ronald McDonald House for over three years now, particularly for their annual charity ball,” said Jamie.

With COVID rearing its ugly head, the ball had been cancelled and Jamie and the LiveBetter team were searching for other ways to support the charity. As Christmas fast approached it was decided a DIY Christmas biscuit decorating box would likely be a hit.

Everything was baked on site as volunteers, clients and the latter, pitched in to help Jamie’s efforts.

A hit it certainly was as 510 boxes were snatched up, and not only from locals. 100 boxes were sent out west to Condobolin, others to Dubbo and even Cobar- how’s that for support right around the Central West.

“I thought the Christmas box was a great way to encourage family activity. Though I expected between 200-300, so, 500 was a lot,” Jamie laughed. “We had all hands-on deck, so it was very much a joint effort.

“We try to do our part and do as much as we can. We try to give back to the house as much as we can.

“RMHC is amazing, supporting the house, being a volunteer and helping out, is completely different to using the house and its facilities and seeing what support they offer- it really is amazing, you actually see where the money and everything else is going.

“Seeing it as them supporting us, it changed the way we view the charity and has made us want to help so much more.”

“I think we can say it far exceeded expectations,” said RMHC Executive Officer, Rebecca Walsh.

“It’s going to have an enormous impact for the house in supporting families. For everyone, COVID gave some extra demands from what we were doing, and we’ve had to change a lot of what we were doing at the house.

“During COVID we saw a lot of families coming through the home that were struggling a lot, so to be able to support them with a home style cooked meal, which Jamie also did some of those emergency meals for us.. meant so much to them.

“From this particular fundraiser we will focus on meals and toiletries and gift cards in terms of petrol and supermarket vouchers. Especially those families who are coming in on public transport,” said Rebecca.

“Families stay with us at no cost, and we’ve been running at 100% occupancy since the beginning of the year. Often families are very, very stressed when they come to us. So, for families to know that they don’t have to put their hand in their pocket, and that we can support them in more ways than a roof over their head, to take those extra burdens off, you can see the look of relief on many- a family’s face when they come through the front doors of the house.”

“The level of support has just been amazing, from in-kind donations to volunteer uptake, to the monetary donations, has just been phenomenal, people have been so very generous, and we cannot thank them and LiveBetter’s Café Connect, enough.


How can you help?

March 25- Wear Red Day (individuals or businesses) dress in red and bring a gold coin donation for RMHC.

Volunteer- RMHC Orange are always looking for volunteers.

Donate- Please contact RMHC Orange for more details.