Best Ways to Help

INDIVIDUALS

1. Cutting Bags & Making Plastic Yarn for Us

Super easy for kids and adults. Relaxing to do as a family or in front of TV. No skills/equipment needed - we can show you how in person or in a quick online video. If you can use scissors, you can do it! We can even provide the plastic bags if you need. Extremely important as the plastic yarn is the basis of all the weaving we do.

2. Weave Sleeping Mats for Us

Easy & fun, no weaving experience needed! We teach primary school students to do this, you can pick it up straight away! Using the plastic yarn and a small custom weaving tool that we provide, you can follow along with our online video or we can teach you in person.

3. Sew Sleeping Bags for Us

With winter coming, we desperately need volunteers to help us sew sleeping bags. These are made from recycled tarps using a simple pattern (no zips, nothing fancy!) and we can supply all the material.

4. Refer a School or Corporate to our Workshop Program

Encourage a friend or your local school to enquire about our fun Student Volunteering Program or Corporate Teambuilding Days, where teams get together in an onsite or offsite workshop to make sleeping mats for the homeless community with us.

5. Drive for Us

Our only big cost as a charity is postage/shipping. Driving for us even an hour a week would make such a HUGE difference to us. Here are some of the ways this would help:

LOCAL INDIVIDUALS:

- picking up the woven mats from our schools and volunteers weavers to bring back to us for distribution

- taking the completed mats to the Homeless Service partners who distribute them for us

- driving plastic bags and recycled textiles to our volunteer weavers to they can turn it into mats

TRUCKDRIVERS/MANUFACTURERS: if you have a truck that has any room in it and is already driving to regional areas/interstate, please let us know if we could pop a few boxes into the truck to drop at super-convenient spot on the way (we won't take the driver out of their way at all), which will save us HUNDREDS of dollars in freight costs, which will allow us to get our sleeping bags and mats to homeless communities in remote/regional areas where they are really needed.

6. Other Important Skills we Need

Our "office" consists of a team of one (me!), so I would be SO GRATEFUL (more than you can imagine!) for any help with any of the following, should you have even one spare hour to donate:

- ARE YOU A GRAPHIC DESIGNER? Could you help make one or two graphics for us to use on our social media?

- ARE YOU A VIDEOGRAPHER? Could you take a little bit of video for us (eg. a snippet of us in action)?

- ARE YOU GREAT AT TIK TOK VIDEOS? Could you make a piece of TikTok content for us?

- ARE YOU GREAT AT SOCIAL MEDIA? Could you help us schedule a couple of Instagram/FB posts?

- ARE YOU AN ACCOUNTANT/BOOKKEEPER? Could we pick your brain for 30mins about a tax question?

- ARE YOU A LAW STUDENT/LAWYER? We need Company Secretarial assistance

- ARE YOU GOOD WITH PEOPLE? Could you be an extra set of hands to help at a workshop? (handing out plastic bags, helping people if they are stuck etc)

Or even just a Follow would help:

- on Insta at http://www.instagram.com/make_a_nest

- on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/julietattamnest

Thank you so much!

SCHOOLS

Introduce our School Volunteering Program to your School

Join the scores of Australian schools joining our fun, hands-on program, where students help us make plastic yarn from plastic bags, weave sleeping mats and sew sleeping bags, while learning about homelessness and plastic waste from a real-world perspective.

BENEFITS TO STUDENTS:

- an opportunity to demonstrate the mental health benefits of giving to others

- seeing how vulnerable parts of our community live, engendering empathy, gratitude and reducing entitlement

- learning about two key modern societal issues - homelessness and plastic waste

- learning practical weaving and fine motor skills

WAYS IT CAN BE RUN:

IN PERSON WORKSHOPS:

We can run onsite or offsite workshops for the students where we guide them through the weaving activities (these can be tailored to the time you have available, anywhere from 1 to 4hrs. COST: $30 per student, minimum 20 students. These can also be held as Zoom workshops, for a reduced cost.

TEACH-THE-TEACHER MODEL:

Staff can watch our Teach The Teacher videos and teach the program themselves at your school. You can purchase the weaving looms from us, and we can even supply you with plastic bags if you don't have enough. COST: Free. Looms are $40 each if picked up from us, or $60 each if posted to you. Completed mats are then collected by, or posted to, Nest (depending on location) for distribution to our homeless service partners.

CUSTOMISED:

Perhaps you'd like Nest to speak at a school event eg. for Social Justice Week, Homelessness Week or a particular module they are studying. We are currently running tailored programs for several schools for their:

- Service Learning Programs

- Duke of Edinburgh students

- Out of Classroom Week

- Character & Enterprise Programs

- Roundsquare Programs

Please contact us today to discuss how we can help your school become involved.

Duke of Ed/Volunteer Opportunities for Multimedia Students

ARE YOU A GRAPHIC DESIGNER? Could you help with one or two graphics for us to use on our social media?

ARE YOU A VIDEOGRAPHER? Could you take a little bit of video for us (eg. a snippet of us in action)?

ARE YOU GREAT AT TIK TOK VIDEOS? Could you make a piece of TikTok content for us?

ARE YOU GREAT AT SOCIAL MEDIA? Could you help us schedule a couple of Instagram/FB posts?

Duke of Ed/Volunteer Opportunities for Textiles Students

CAN YOU USE A SEWING MACHINE? Could you help us sew some sleeping bags?

(all materials provided, all you need is a sewing machine)

CORPORATES

Run a Corporate Volunteering/Teambuilding Workshop

Encourage a friend or your local school to enquire about our fun Student Volunteering Program or Corporate Teambuilding Days, where teams get together in an onsite or offsite workshop where they make sleeping mats for the homeless community with us.

Do you have any room on your truck?

TRUCKDRIVERS/MANUFACTURERS: if you have a truck that has any room in it and is already driving to regional areas/interstate, please let us know if we could pop a few boxes into the truck to drop at a convenient spot along your way (we won't take the driver out of their way at all). This will allow us to get our sleeping bags and mats closer to homeless communities in remote/regional areas where they are really needed.

Other Important Skills we Need