Melbourne bloggers aim to make a difference

GUEST POST: Nicole Avery is the master organiser behind the popular parenting blog Planning With Kids, where she shares tips and tricks to organising the chaos of family life. Her first book “Planning With Kids” was released in May 2011 by Wright Books.

As a mum to 5, Nicole is passionate about helping mothers in her community who may not have the resources, opportunities or support that she knows she is lucky to have.

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As bloggers we are in a position to receive great products from prominent brands in Australia. We do love this and appreciate the relationships we have with brands and their public relations representatives. As Christmas draws closer, we thought we would like to extend this opportunity to those in our community who have much less than ourselves.

So myself, Kathy, Kate, Marita, Amanda and Shae set about organising a Christmas catch up for Melbourne bloggers with a difference. We invited select brands to join us and have an opportunity to display their products and give a short talk to bloggers about how they help those in our community.

The key difference with this event though is we have asked brands to give the products to two chosen community organisations, not us bloggers!

The two community organisations are:

1.  St Kilda Mums

St Kilda Mums are a voluntary network of mothers who work together to collect and sort donations of baby and preschool children’s clothing, toys, books and essential nursery equipment.

These items are then re-distributed by Maternal and Child Health Nurses and Family Case Workers to families in the city of Melbourne, Australia.

2.  Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is Australia’s leading asylum seeker organisation. They are an independent and non – federal government funded human rights organisation. The ASRC provides support and advice for those seeking asylum in Australia.

You can see full details of the event here and if you are a Melbourne blogger and want to come along to this free event on December 9, you’d better be quick as there are only four tickets left!

Community Blogging

This Christmas event is only the beginning of the Community Blogging project though. We see great potential in bloggers and community organisations working together, blogging for social good.

We are asking for input from bloggers and community organisations, so we can best determine how to match up the parties. If you are interested you can fill in your details here:

• Get involved – bloggers
• Get involved – community organisations

You can follow our journey with blogging for social good via our twitter account and via the hashtag #blog4community