The School of St Judes

News / Social / Meet our not-for-profit partners

One thing we’ve learned over the years is that businesses don’t exist in a vacuum. We’re part of Melbourne. Part of a global community. And it’s our responsibility to pitch in and help that community however we can.

SHADES is teamed up with a couple of great not-for-profit organisations.

One of the them is the School of St Jude, which we’ve been proudly supporting for over 10 years. These guys do an amazing job. They provide free education to disadvantaged children in Tanzania’s Arusha district—bright kids who otherwise wouldn’t have access to classrooms, teachers and school equipment.

There are roughly 1,800 students at the School of St Jude now, spread across primary and secondary campuses, and the organisation also supports 10,000 government students every year. It actually began with an Australian woman, Gemma Sisia, back in 2002. Thanks to donors and government support, the School of St Jude has managed to build three libraries, stocked with over 30,000 books.

We sponsor three individual kids through St Jude’s program: Ainesi, Grace and Benson. It’s a real thrill watching their progress and seeing them grow. They even write back to us occasionally!

Our other partner is Koala Kids. Their mission is to make life easier for every child undergoing cancer treatment in Victoria and Tasmania. They provide therapeutic resources and family support in places like The Royal Children’s Hospital, The Royal Hobart Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

Koala Kids is an amazing organisation. Their whole purpose is to bring joy to kids battling cancer, and to relieve some of the pressure on families. We like to help however we can. Over Christmas, we donated several gifts to their toy drive, and our staff even helped them move large, bulky items (like mattresses) to get everything ready for the big day. We couldn’t be more proud to support these guys.

If you’d like to learn more about Koala Kids and The School of St Jude, check out their websites. You can make donations online, or even volunteer your time. Koala Kids also runs a work experience and internship program. There are plenty of ways to get involved.

We’ll keep you updated with other SHADES community partnerships throughout the year.

SHADES has always been a community organisation, and over the last few years we’ve thought a lot about what that word means. We’re a local business, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do great things all over the world. No business is too small to make a difference. And it’s thanks to our supporters and our customers—you guys—that we’re in a position to help. So thank you.