HANNAH Andrevski started Roundabout Canberra because she is a mum who likes the idea of being able to pass her secondhand baby items on to people in the community who need them.

“At the time, I was living in Queanbeyan, I had a young baby and a toddler, and there was a need there for some families who needed support. I used to give stuff away free on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree,” says Hannah, 35.

“I just really liked the idea of knowing the items I passed on were going directly to families that needed them.

“I have previously done an arts degree at ANU, and then I went on to do a masters in criminology. I actually worked for the AFP for 10 years, so I’ve always had a strong passion for helping people and doing something good in the community.

“I’d seen some charities around other parts of Australia who do what we do now, and I thought surely something like that could work here.”

Hannah founded Roundabout five years ago, in early 2018, and in the first year they helped 360 babies.

Last year they helped more than 3000.

“Through Roundabout we take donations of secondhand baby and children items. In the early days we were focused on babies but we now take up to size 16 children’s clothing, and then we work with social services and community organisations to pass things on to families or people who need them,” she says.

“Whether it’s public hospitals, women’s refuges, migrant and refugee support services, there is a whole range of people we support, through working with 110 services in and around Canberra.

“Whenever a service is working with a family that needs goods, the service places an online order with us, sort of like a click-and-collect order, and we package up exactly what that particular family needs and the service comes and picks it up and takes it to the family. It’s different for every family.”

Hannah says with the current cost-of-living pressures they’re expecting demand to keep growing, quickly.

“It’s just huge, there are so many families really feeling the brunt of pressure. Food, rent and petrol, everything is very expensive so we’re seeing families who need support who might not have previously needed support,” she says.

“We’ve grown certainly in terms of the demand but also in terms of the volume of goods that we’re processing and the number of volunteers that we have. We now have 250 active volunteers on our database, so we’ve grown in all aspects of our work.

“We know that there are around 8000 children living in poverty in the ACT, so last year we helped just over 3000 kids. We just want to make sure we’re in a position to support all of those children who do need our support, we need to make sure we keep that supply of children’s goods coming in and we keep our volunteer numbers up, that we keep things moving along.”

Hannah says she knows there are still people in Canberra who don’t know about Roundabout, so she is trying to spread the word.

“We had a Southside Donation Day on June 17, in recognition that people in Canberra tend to stick to their Canberra bubble, people who live on the further side of town, southside, think it’s a bit of a trek to come out to Holt to donate, so we’re doing what we can to make it as easy as possible for people to get their donations to us, because the volume of goods that we’re flying through at the moment is huge and the demand is really high,” she says.

“Winter clothing for all sizes, but particularly for sizes five to 16, winter linen, bassinet, cot and single bed linen, prams and cots, those are probably the things that we are in particular need of.

“We’re also running out our winter tax appeal as well, seeking financial donations to just allow us to continue doing the work that we’re doing.

“I am so proud to see how much we’ve grown, and how many people we have been able to help, it’s very hard to believe and I can’t wait to see it all continue.”

roundaboutcanberra.org