Originally from country NSW, Karen Peters and her family moved to Frankston when she was a toddler. Her early years were spent in Frankston and Mornington before moving to Red Hill and Mt Martha, and returning to Mornington where she is now based. “The Mornington Peninsula is definitely my home, and where my heart is,” explains Karen.

Karen spent the first fifteen years of her career as a journalist with the Leader group of newspapers. She then took on a role as manager of the Dromana Community House where she spent eight years and first became aware of the Southern Peninsula Community Support. Says Karen, “I did a little bit of work with the then CEO and established some strong contacts and connections.”

After spending some time away from community service with a few journalistic roles, Karen was offered a permanent position with Southern Peninsula Community Support in Rosebud, which is where she has been working for the last five years. “We have been providing crisis support, emergency relief, information and referrals since around 1980 for communities from Safety Beach to Portsea. We are all about connecting people in need with local organisations that can assist them with housing, employment, violence, drug and alcohol support, sexual assault and financial counselling, and material aid. We are very much a generalist service, and we do a lot of work on the ground via a team of around 60 volunteers.”

With her team facing situations that can be very emotionally disturbing and difficult to navigate, Karen understands that volunteer work isn’t for everybody.  Explains Karen, “You do need to have a fair amount of resilience to work in community support for any length of time. It’s not a role that you can come to with half a tank, you need to have a full tank of internal resources to call on when you are dealing with situations that can be quite distressing. As a crisis centre, we are not seeing people of our local community on their best day.”

As such a group of 60 volunteers in a small community is quite extraordinary, and these volunteers fulfill a number of roles from the board of management to the reception crew to community support workers who are highly trained in emergency relief interviews, to food relief volunteers to managing their tax help program and data entry. Adds Karen, “Volunteers are crucial to what we do. In the last year we have had 15,500 hours of time donated which equates to around $750,000 of wages.”

The biggest issue we are facing at the moment on the Mornington Peninsula is appropriate and affordable housing. Says Karen, “The cost of living increases are really hitting our most vulnerable, and there is a real scarcity of services for dealing with more complex needs. For someone who is experiencing homelessness, there are a range of other issues that person is dealing with. Connecting these people to appropriate support is difficult. The lack of public transport is a key problem facing those in need. Most services stop in Frankston, and for a lot of our clients that may as well be the moon.”

Fundraising is crucial for Southern Peninsula Community Support. For their service to operate, 60% of funds are generated via donations, grants and philanthropic organisations as only 40% is government funded. “There is always a competition for dollars as there are so many good causes out there, but we provide grassroots support for those in need on the southern Mornington Peninsula,” says Karen.

To offer your support or get involved, financial donations make all the difference to an organisation that can stretch dollars far and wide. Volunteering is always very welcome and workplace fundraising for groceries and toiletries is much appreciated “We really encourage people to follow us on Facebook where we place callouts for specific items we are desperately in need of. For example, last year we urgently needed tents, sleeping bags and swags because of the huge number of people who were rough sleeping in the local area. There is minimal emergency housing available for those in need, so we do everything we can to support those who need our help.”

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