Nine members of Nodifi’s corporate team, along with hundreds of CEOs and business owners Australia wide, will be taking part in the Vinnies CEO Sleepout on Thursday 18 June.
The initiative – run by the St Vincent de Paul Society – raises awareness and funds to provide people experiencing homelessness and people at risk of homelessness with vital access to food and accommodation.
Vinnies Sleepouts are normally held at large centralised locations (such as sporting grounds), however, given current social distancing rules, participants will nominate their own sleepout locations.
The Nodifi team will be sleeping out in their office car park and will be running a BBQ fundraiser on the day for last minute donations.
Nodifi CEO Tom Caesar – who is one of the nine participating – commented,
“Homelessness isn’t just people who are sleeping on the street, it’s people who are couch-surfing and staying over at friends’ houses to have somewhere to sleep. Many of us might know someone who is doing that now; it is such a big issue and isn’t what people necessarily think of when they think of homelessness. So, this is a great way of raising awareness of this issue. When you start looking more into the reasons behind homelessness, it’s quite scary how quickly it can happen, and how it can happen to so many people.”
“When you see the stories of how Vinnies support people to get back into secure housing and the changes that can bring them, it’s pretty incredible. So, I thought this was a great opportunity to raise some money for them and support a really good cause. It’s pretty insane what those dollars can do.”
He adds, “This is more important than ever, as there’s going to be more job losses from COVID-19. It might not be now, it might be post-September when a lot of the support from the government is expected to cease. It would be pretty straightforward to think that homelessness is going to go up, and there will be a lot more people who won’t have a roof over their head. So, I think the tough times are really going to begin over the next six months, and it’s important we share as much as we can now.”
Tom will be joined by; Chris Sims – Chief Product Officer, Tim Wells – Head of Customer Experience, Peter Holman – Head of Home Lending, Jordan Mutton – General Manager, Chris Tilley – Head of Credit, Liam Sutcliffe – Relationship Manager, Daniel Adams – Group Training Manager and Chris Murray – Commercial Team Leader.
For more information and to donate, head to ceosleepout.org.au/nodifi
