February 15, 2024
South Burnett Care hosted the Kingaroy Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s first meet’n’greet for 2024 on Tuesday night.
The upcoming South Burnett Regional Council election was top of mind for many of the attendees – there was a large contingent of candidates – but one councillor in particular looked especially happy.
Cr Danita Potter learned earlier in the day after nominations closed that no one was standing against her in Division 3 so she would be re-elected unopposed.
Guest speakers at the KCCI meet’n’greet night included South Burnett Care CEO Cheryl Dalton who explained the many services the not-for-profit organisation is involved in.
This includes Meals On Wheels, which distributes 40,000 meals in the South Burnett every year, has 309 clients (and catered for the meet’n’greet).
“Our vision is to be trusted by our communities as the premier community care service,” Cheryl said.
“We take that really seriously.
“Our purpose has been there for 47 years; that is, to provide services and facilities for people in our community who are aged, frail, have a disability and their carers.”
Cheryl emphasised that South Burnett Care was owned, managed and governed in the South Burnett.
It has 240 employees, 52 vehicles and its workers clocked up over 1.5 million kilometres helping clients during the past year.
The organisation has more than 1500 clients and provided over 200,000 “occasions of service”.
There are 565 NDIS recipients who are having their plans managed, and 509 clients in the allied health therapy group.
“We are very proud of the aged care and NDIS services we provide and we were awarded two ‘Best Practices’ in our last audit, and five in the last three years – which in unheard of in NDIS,” Cheryl said.
She invited the meet’n’greet visitors to tour the complex with staff members at the end of the evening to see the facilities which are available.
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Also at the KCCI meet’n’greet:
- KCCI president Damien Martoo reminded people to book online to attend the free SB Votes 24 candidates night which will be held at St John’s Lutheran Hall from 6:00pm next Monday (February 19)
- Darren Schmidt, from St John’s Lutheran School, explained a new initiative, dubbed STEC, designed to encourage local students to train with local employers. Five high schools are supporting the program. A new Jobs Board will be launched on the Employment Matters website
- Margie Hams and Sam Bicker, from Kingaroy Head To Health, spoke about their new service which now has six full-time staff and is open from 10:00am to 6:00pm, Monday to Friday.
- Gus Napier, from the South Burnett Support Alliance, said the Alliance had grown out of an initiative begun by Rotary, South Burnett CTC and other local groups to provide a Sunday lunch in Kingaroy for homeless people. The Alliance has now been registered as a charity and expects to be granted deductible gift recipient status soon. Gus said there were about 150 homeless people around Kingaroy. The group hopes to launch a project in April where groups / businesses will provide dinner one night per year.
- South Burnett new graduates are invited to attend a social “grad” night from 6:00pm at the Kingaroy Hotel this Friday night (February 16). More information is available on Facebook (for new graduates only).
