After years of helping change lives for the better in the South East, the Reaching Out Foundation has decided it is time to say goodbye.
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Its board had its final meeting on Friday, August 2, with its co-founder Ross Williams saying they did not have a sense of failure over the occasion.
"It's a sense of we've been there, we've done quite a bit and we've created a sense of awareness," he said.
"When communities pull together they can achieve marvelous things."
He and John Richardson founded the group five years ago and said its biggest achievement was opening two social cafes based on the Ricky's Place model in Bega: Pearls Place in Pambula and Snowy's Place in Cooma.
"They have certainly helped those doing it tough and they've certainly helped the lonely," Mr Williams said.
He said it was sad the foundation was closing, but it was doing so because its members felt they have achieved some important goals and decided to step back having set up the social cafes.
The foundation's director and company secretary Carolyn Scheetz said she had mixed feelings about the occasion, but it was still a celebration as they had successfully set up the cafes that had impacted positively on people in need around the community.
"It changes people's lives. I was quite excited to be involved in that," she said.
She said over the last few years the group had been raising money working with the Social Justice Advocates to look at what could be done for those who were homelessness and had bought caravans for women and children fleeing domestic violence.
Also, it ran a men's health check at Pambula last year at which 90 men were processed at seven different health stations and all medicos volunteered their time.
"We feel really proud of what we've done and I think a lot of people appreciate Pearls Place," Ms Scheetz said.
"We don't take any credit for the ongoing success of it, because the people who run it are really, really fantastic.
"But we feel really happy about what we've achieved and feel it was a good time to stop."
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Its members will now put their efforts into the Social Justice Advocates, as it is a larger organisation and they had been working closely together.
Albert McKnight
Journalist at Bega District News.
Journalist at Bega District News.
