Let's Grow Boots for One and All's Impact

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Our charity removes barriers for Indigenous youth in remote communities by providing donated sports gear to keep them engaged.

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Boots for One and All Community Inc (ABN 49 435 780 164) (BFOAA) exists to see the elimination of abject poverty in the remote Indigenous communities of Australia. The ways in which participation in sport improves the physical health, mental wellbeing and overall development of youth are well documented. In addition, among Indigenous young people, the inability to participate in school sport has led to them not attending school at all. Our relief work seeks to remove the structural barriers that exclude or hinder impoverished Indigenous young people in remote communities from participating in education and sport. We have chosen this focus because our experience operating in numerous remote Indigenous communities is that disadvantaged Indigenous young people’s participation in education and sport is fundamental to improving broader social and economic development outcomes including, significantly, in relation to poverty alleviation, educational attainment, obtaining employment and improving mental and physical health. We do this through our core activity of coordinating in-kind donations of sportswear and sporting equipment, thus providing typically inaccessible goods that can assist in getting young Indigenous people to stay in school and breaking the poverty cycle. We work towards our vision ofproviding relief through coordinating the collection and delivery of sportswearand sports equipment to remote Indigenous locations that need them most. Sporthas been described as the ‘great equaliser’ because of its ability to breakdownsocial barriers and improve health outcomes for all. Children who play sportperform better academically, are more likely to graduate from high school andwill be healthier and happier. Sport also promotes social cohesion and values ofconfidence, persistence, teamwork, leadership, empathy, and communication, allof which form ‘tools’ in a child’s arsenal that aid their development andempower them to contribute to their communities. In our observed experience,involvement in sport in turn encourages school attendance and contributes tooverall youth development. To date we have managed our charity work from our Founders double garage. As our impact has increased so has the number of donations we receive. This increase has enabled us to co-ordinate more deliveries to community and enrol the help of more volunteers. Our growth is now being hindered due to lack of space and time the garage is available to volunteers. The goal of this fundraising is to fund 24 months of lease of a commercial warehouse. This facility will enable our team of volunteers to clean, sort and receive donations during business hours and remove our current time and space constraints.