Gabriella Vukman
Lending a hand to the local community, the Father’s House Church in Healesville is hosting carols and a free Christmas feed this Sunday, December 10.
Off the back of the Church’s broad community aid scheme, both the carols and Christmas meal are open to all and will run from 3-5pm at the Healesville Father’s House Church on Symons Street.
The carols will be performed by the Church’s music team, along with other musicians and professional singers from the local community.
Senior pastors of fathers house church Colleen and Calvin Kally said, “Carols at our church is a yearly event.”
Colleen said, “We open these carols up to the community because during covid we saw a great need for community aid. we put the meal and carols together and thought it was a great way to bring the community together to celebrate with us.”
“We want to make sure that this event is a community event and not just a church event,” Colleen said.
Whilst attendance for the carols and Christmas meal is free, people are encouraged to register on the Church’s website to ensure that everyone is catered for.
Christmas hampers will also be distributed on the day of the carols and must also be registered for.
Colleen said, “We started the hampers during covid to do food relief. We also had toiletries along with any supplies we could get.”
“We’ve already had lots of people from the community registering for these hampers,” Colleen said.
“We want to provide those in need with lovely Christmas hampers with luxury items and really bless families with things they might not be able to afford.”
This year, hamper donations are to be dropped off at the Church before December 9, to enable staff to sort, package and assemble hampers in time for their distribution.
Colleen said, “one of the things we wanted to do, instead of just handing things out, we want to give people back their dignity.”
“We want to package things properly and make them feel special. We put a lot of thought and planning into how we do the hampers,” Colleen said.
Not only are the Church’s initiatives geared towards providing food and resource aid to the community, but a focus on spreading jubilation during the Christmas season is also intrinsic to the aims of the Healesville Father’s Church.
Calvin said, “We are making sure that we firstly meet the needs of the community and secondly, spread that Christmas cheer around.”
“Christmas is a time for rejoicing and so we’d like every home to at least have a little bit of joy,” Calvin said.
The Father’s Church in Healesville is looking to partner with other organisations in order to generate more aid for the Healesville and surrounding community.
Calvin said, “our Church is already known for being very generous and supportive of the community, but we are actually seeking to establish more connectivity with the Healesville area so that we can help with other arising needs and facilitate further aid.”
“We believe that no one organisation can solve a problem and so if we work together as a team, we can definitely bring a lot more value to the community,” Calvin said.
“At the church we firmly believe in giving people a hand up and not a hand out and that means restoring people’s dignity.”
The Church also has a food van situated in Healesville of a Monday evening, supplied with hot meals for those in need to take home.
Colleen said, “We average 65 meals every week and there are about 28 to 30 families in Healesville that we feed.”
“The carols, all of our community initiatives are volunteer based. Our finances and labour are donated by volunteers,” Colleen said.
“Anyone can donate. We’ve got a list of items that people can donate for hampers. We’ve put a lot of thought into those things.”
The funds required to supply food and supplies to the community come from the donations of members of the Church. These funds are then allocated to the branch of community engagement.
Calvin said, “putting on an event like this, we want to make sure that people have a good time and part of that process will be to have resources and people resources who are willing to give up their time and their skills to actually render this event successful.
“We have people giving financially and people giving both their skills and their time,” Calvin said.
