The $1 Christmas Challenge: Help Hundreds for Thousands save Christmas

Posted on 15 December, 2021

With less than two weeks until Christmas, Natalie Tanchevski, founder of local fundraising initiative Hundreds for Thousands, is asking the Canberra public to “give a little and help a lot” with their $1 Christmas challenge.

The idea behind the challenge is to encourage more people to give “just $1”. “Just $1 can make a huge difference when we all work together,” says Natalie. “Will you accept the challenge?”

A Christmas fundraiser, Hundreds for Thousands aims to “help out the family next door” by raising $100,000 to help 1000 local families experiencing hardship across the ACT and surrounding regions. The $100,000 is distributed in the form of grocery gift cards through The Salvation Army to families registered with their local Salvos centre—giving families the freedom to choose the food they like to eat.

While the first Hundreds for Thousands fundraiser in 2020 was a great success, Natalie never imagined a second lockdown in 2021 would put strain on even more Canberra families, prompting Natalie to bring back Hundreds for Thousands for Christmas 2021.

“The unfortunate thing is, that because of that there are now going to be a lot more people reaching out to their local Salvos for assistance this Christmas. People that never in a million years would have expected to be needing to ask for help from the Salvos.”

Sadly, the stats suggest this is indeed the case, with Hands Across Canberra’s recent Vital Signs report finding that 38% of Canberrans with paid employment live in poverty and “too many of these Canberrans are children”.

Therefore, Natalie has enlisted the help of Super Donors to match every dollar donated with a dollar of their own. These corporate partners will go a long way towards helping vulnerable Canberrans, but Natalie says the work is far from done.

“Each of the ten Salvos locations will have a super donor or a couple of super donors supporting them, and they will be matching donations that come in from the public.”

With each donation from the community matched dollar for dollar by these super donors, Natalie and her team are calling on Canberrans to come together and rise to the challenge to help 1000 local families in need.

While Christmas is usually a cheerful time of year, both Natalie and the Salvos are concerned that, as lockdown ended so close to the holiday season, vulnerable families will be stretched even further.

“This is where this fundraiser is great, because we’re raising money to get the gift vouchers to help people not only in the lead up to Christmas but right across the festive season, into January too,” Natalie says.

The 10 Salvos centres involved are Gungahlin, Belconnen, Canberra City, Fyshwick, Woden, Tuggeranong, Queanbeyan, Yass, Cooma and Goulburn and if you’re a family in need of assistance this Christmas or know someone who is, you’re encouraged to reach out to your local Salvation Army centre and register your details.