About us News The Kindness Garden On Saturday April 13th, Hervey Bay Neighbourhood Centre officially opening our community’s first Kindness Garden and Wandering Teapot Shack at our Hervey Bay Community Centre. These projects were funded by the Department of Housing and Public Works under the Dignity First program, the concept behind these life-changing projects is to help prevent and reduce homelessness, and support those affected to live with dignity. Dignity First The Dignity First fund is a key action of the Queensland Housing Strategy 2017–2020 Action Plan, and provides one-off grants to support new and innovative ideas from non-government providers that: prevents and reduces homelessness helps people experiencing homelessness live with dignity. The Kindness Garden has been designed to ensure the homeless that sleep at the Community Centre are safe – we have installed additional security cameras and lighting. We have also included large benches for sleeping to ensure they are comfortable as possible. Watch Video on Facebook The Wandering Teapot Café The Wandering Teapot Café was inspired during the HBNC strategic planning sessions with the Management Committee to develop a social enterprise model outside the traditional operations for not-for-profits. The successful opening of the first site at TWT & Community Cubed in September last year (supported by Stockland, AATEC – Leif and Seven Levels) has now led to our second site being opened within the Community Centre to create a community café and training area for our vulnerable clients to develop skills. All the funds that are raised through the sale of our tea go back to fund the Comfort Kitchen which serves over 200 free meals each week. A special thanks We would like to thank a number of businesses that have supported the development of both these services including: Metcalfe Construction who built the TWT café Gavin Patterson the architect who donated his time to help design the café Harley from Hervey Bay Coffee Roasters who donated the new coffee machine Ulf from Bean Beat who helped consult on the set up of the café The Hervey Bay RSL who donated the chairs for the café Stockland who donated the outdoor tables on the deck Wolfpack who installed the logo and sign Fraser Coast Regional Council for the clearing the garden Lastly, the Butchulla Elders for the beautiful and inspiring poles for the garden.