A Bottler of a Campaign
By BEV JORDAN
Thousands of water bottles can now be given out to the homeless in Western Sydney this summer thanks to the work of the Hills-based Powerful Empowered Women organisation and founder Norwest businesswoman Pratibha Bhanushali.
The organisation made a commitment to collect 10,000 bottles of water for the StreetMed organisation before the hot weather and 5,400 were delivered last week with the bulk donated by the Commonwealth Bank Norwest and also OfficeWorks Castle Hill.
Pratibha has supported the Hills Winter Sleepout for the past four years and wanted to make a difference to people living on the street.
“My doctor always keeps (warning) me about dehydration issues, and I thought, `what about homeless… how must they be managing water needs? Dehydration is a major issue for homeless people. There may not always be a convenient place to fill up a reusable bottle, so bottled water is always a good help for them,” she said.
The containers were delivered earlier this month to a North Rocks warehouse where Saly Gad from the Commonwealth Bank and Prathiba met the founder of StreetMed Chris Cleary (see photo). The charity provides street-level first aid to the homeless in the Parramatta area and also offers food service.
“Summer is always a tough time for our street friends, and for some reason, bottled water is the hardest commodity to come by in bulk,” said Chris.
She said the Water Bottle Drive for the Homeless was well on target of 10,000 containers.
