How donations are used

Your donation to Lou’s Place will help us to keep the doors open. Each day we open our doors to 25 women in need of support we spend $1500. These funds meet our costs, including providing well qualified staff, a building, food, supplies, electricity, rates, insurances, equipment, cleaning, water and alarms.

At Lou’s we operate a number of programs designed to help our clients stabilise their lives and find ways to move forward. We are always looking at ways to improve the services we offer and over the last 12 months we have:

implemented a measurement tool called the ‘Quality of Life Index’ which we use to measure the progress of a number of our clients;
introduced medium to longer-term case management;
looked more broadly at our program of activities and given a more life skills based focus to the program, including classes like ‘Taking Control – Looking after your Money’;
commenced group sessions led by 2 counsellors to provide the opportunity of shared learning.

In this same 12 month period we have opened the door to women in need 3 604 times and:

served 1 030 breakfasts and 3 090 lunches
celebrated 14 birthdays with cake and gifts
shared the Christmas season with good food, thanks giving, singing and gifts
arranged 3 funerals and recognised those women’s lives respectfully and in a personal way
supported clients with mental health issues 2 703 times and drug and alcohol problems 1 802 times
provided legal support 107 times and medical support 155 times
conducted 751 sessions of art, craft, music, creative writing, cooking, jewellery making and sewing
enabled women to do 871 personal laundry loads
distributed 1 369 bundles of clothing