HELPFUL Love is a movement that has gone from strength to strength over the past year, and founder Kim Oakhill has no plans on slowing down.
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Within weeks, Helpful Love, a website which promotes alternative, helpful and useful gift ideas to give to people during tough times, is about to go national.
“After months of preparation and hard work from incredible volunteers, Helpful Love will be launching location directories and offering services in all states across the country,” Mrs Oakhill said.
Currently, Helpful Love has vendors as far north as Port Macquarie and as far south as Canberra.
“I’m so excited to be able to offer this service to people nationwide,” Mrs Oakhill said.
Services and products available on the Helpful Love website include home cooked meal deliveries; environmentally friendly home cleaning services; lawn and handyman services; remedial massage and photography.
“People have been really receptive to the idea of providing a thoughtful gift instead of flowers to someone going through a really tragic time,” Mrs Oakhill said.
The team has grown from just Mrs Oakhill to seven volunteers, or ‘Helpful Lovers’ as she likes to call them.
The Helpful Lovers are stay-at-home mums who are passionate about what Helpful Love does.
“They each have a delegated area, such as Queensland or Victoria, and they spread the word about Helpful Love, and work on getting service providers in their area on board,” Mrs Oakhill said.
In May last year, Mrs Oakhill was awarded the Awesome Newcastle grant worth $1,000.
“The grant was amazing. It really helped with the technical side of things, such as designing the Helpful Love logo, updating the website, creating the gift vouchers,” Mrs Oakhill said.
Shortly after receiving the grant, Helpful Love launched the online store, which sells the gift vouchers and handmade cards.
A new addition to the Helpful Love website, the ‘collections’ feature, came about from a phone call Mrs Oakhill received early last December. It was from a photographer in Newcastle.
A female teacher at his kids primary school had tragically passed away during childbirth. The newborn survived.
The photographer, Thierry Boudan, wanted a way for people to be able to help the family.
“My heart broke when I heard about this tragedy, and I really wanted to be able to help those suffering.
“I created the collections feature of Helpful Love as a way for people in the community to donate to the family in the form of practical, useful domestic support,” Mrs Oakhill said.
