It was a Thursday morning in Brisbane when Lucas and I were out on shift at Wickham Park. This inner-city park has a lot of significance for me; it’s where my Mum took me one morning when I was growing up to help volunteer – an experience that had a profound impact on my life. It’s also the place where we started Orange Sky alongside our high school food van.

Lucas and I were out on shift meeting with a mentor, who was giving us some feedback on our operations. It’s always a little bit uncomfortable for me dropping in on a shift; I feel like somewhat of an intruder on a special community, as volunteers and friends have such a meaningful connection (I’m also terrible at remembering names!).

I was standing at the back of the laundry van talking to two volunteers, Kathleen and Tammy, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman sit down on an orange chair. She was talking to herself and looked quite down. I tried to maintain conversation and engagement with the volunteers, but I couldn’t help but be distracted by this friend.

I have always found empty orange chairs to be a sign of loneliness, but also the potential for connection with another person. I felt nervous as I walked over and sat down on one of the vacant orange chairs. I introduced myself. I said, “Hi, my name is Nic, do you mind if I ask what your name is?” She said, “I am Dani, nice to meet you.”

I noticed a strong accent. I asked her what was on for the rest of the day and Dani told me she was going to yoga. She said she found yoga and meditating helpful for her, and that she was able to get free classes in exchange for helping out at the studio. I asked how she found out about the studio and she told me she got the confidence to go there after an Orange Sky volunteer, Claire, suggested it to her.

We kept on talking for the rest of shift until Dani’s washing was done. I could have spoken to her for many more hours. I have not seen Dani since that day, but I often think about that conversation. Dani would have been a few years older than me. We both come from different parts of the world with different upbringings and perspective, however have both felt the same beautiful connection from the same beautiful person.

Human connection is special and complex, but it often stems from the simplest things. In this case, it all started from a simple conversation on an orange chair in a park in Brisbane.

My Mum has given me so much, but this Mother’s Day, I am grateful for the gift of shared perspective, shared understanding and shared connection.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful Mums out there. 

Starting a new job is the epitome of mixed emotions.

The nerves and excitement rolled in together are almost too much to handle. But when I started at Orange Sky Australia a month ago, I learnt very quickly that starting a new job did not have to be scary and stressful.

Here are the five things I learnt in my first month at Orange Sky…

1. Everyone is amazing – and I’m not just talking about that first month in, honey-moon phase. I am talking about a genuine connection. People really want to help you, get to know you and more than anything, make sure that your time at Orange Sky is valued.

2. Colour is king! I have a friend who joked that my new workplace would look like Google – I mean there’s coloured post-it notes lining the walls, whiteboards with some serious brainstorming and ergonomically considerate desks! Orange Sky is passionate about creating the best working environment for everyone, and they do a pretty great job at it.

3. Passion and purpose is palpable – they say if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. For me, if you have passion in what you do, you will continuously want to do more.

4. Pretty stationery doesn’t make you productive. I love stationery and love how organised it makes things look, but does it really help me get more work done? No… it just looks pretty. It’s amazing to have the opportunity to leverage systems of work that are created to enhance productivity and efficiency.

5. Goal set, review, create objectives, build key results – rinse and repeat! Planning is just as important as wearing your favourite T-shirt – it adds something to your confidence, personality and productivity.

Vehicles are a pretty big part of what we do at Orange Sky (we’re a ‘mobile’ laundry and shower service after all!), so we thought it was fitting to start this month’s safety spiel with some facts about vehicles that you might not know…

• • There are an estimated 60 million cars made each year
• • As of 2010, there were more than 1 billion vehicles being used on earth
• • The average person spends two weeks of their life waiting at red lights!
• • A car fuelled by a cappuccino was created as an attempt at producing a renewable energy source. The car system converts used coffee grounds to flammable gas. It takes 56 espressos to fuel 1.6km in the ‘car-puccino’
• • Here is one last fact, and this one is a little more sobering; driver distraction is one of the main causes of road crashes, accounting for approximately 1 in 4 car crashes.

It’s a timely reminder as we start a new year to remain vigilant when we get behind the wheel of a vehicle, whether it’s our own or if we are driving an Orange Sky van to shift.

Remember:

• • Watch your speed. Speeding does not just mean driving faster than the posted speed limit, it also means driving too fast for the conditions such as weather, traffic and road conditions.
• • Fatigue is a major contributing factor to work-related vehicle accidents. Effects of fatigue on driving include impaired judgement, reaction times and performance among others. Drivers can manage this by having sufficient sleep before driving, keeping the cabin well ventilated, avoiding medications which cause drowsiness.
• • Using mobile phones and tablets distracts drivers in a number of ways from their primary task of driving. Drivers can manage this by allowing calls to go to voicemail, not touching your device while at traffic lights or while stationary in traffic. If you must use your phone first pull over and come to a complete stop.
• • OSA vans are longer and higher than standard vehicles, keep this in mind when parking, entering tight or low spaces. Be sure to use a spotter if you need guidance, take your time and never rush.By remembering to drive responsibly we can continue to keep our vans roadworthy and keep ourselves and the community safe this year.

Meet Chelsea. She started working with Orange Sky in January and since then, we’ve learnt a few things about her; she is afraid of butterflies (we know, SO MANY QUESTIONS), she never reads the last page of a novel and she’s great at bringing in a buck or two (not surprising that she’s an Accountant!)

Chelsea and her partner, Arno are among our top fundraisers for The Sudsy Challenge, raising nearly $600 towards their goal of $1152 (which will support four friends for one whole year).

She said being part of The Sudsy Challenge gave her the opportunity to raise awareness about homelessness and experiences in her own community.

“Many of us are fortunate enough not to be in this situation, but there is something we can do to make a difference,” she said.

“My partner and I decided to do The Sudsy Challenge to help support the 116,000 Australians who are experiencing homelessness. We want to raise $567 to help support two friends for one whole year – and we pledge to match donations dollar for dollar, so we can help a total of four friends.

“We are passionate about volunteering and we are now very excited about taking the next step in furthering our impact!

“We hope people will join us in raising awareness for friends doing it tough and pitch in what they can – and don’t forget that it’s tax deductible!”

Chelsea is one of 2400 people who have signed up for The Sudsy Challenge and helped to raise more than $115,000 for people doing it tough.

Kitted up in her Sudsy shirt, Chelsea said she was hoping to have lots of “positive and informative” chats.

“We want to get out as much as we can because it’s a great opportunity to introduce Orange Sky and the Sudsy Challenge to our community! Since we are doing this as a team, we are planning on sticking together for the weekend. We are hoping that the matching t-shirts will invite a lot of curious eyes to our cause,” she said.

“We’ll start with our routine weekend errands, add in a few social engagements and end our weekend at our shower shift at Emma Miller Place.

“We want to emphasise the value in the conversations we have on our six orange chairs and hope that people will come to appreciate that broader conversations about homelessness must continue.”

That’s why at Orange Sky, our mission doesn’t involve the words ‘laundry’ or ‘washing’ – it is to positively connect communities.

We see everyday the power of a simple conversation and how feeling connected and part of a community can change a person’s life.

Here’s just a few of the friends that we’ve learnt that from over the past four and a half years:

Picture this; it’s a cold night in May, it’s raining, and you’ve just finished your first volunteer shift with Orange Sky at 9.30pm. You’re happy to be in a nice, warm car with the heater on and you’re already thinking about that cup of tea you’re going to have before hopping into bed tonight. But before you can do that, you bring yourself back to the friends you’ve just said goodbye to on shift and the 116,000 people who tonight, don’t have a place to call home.

A few months ago, we partnered with Harcourts in Brisbane and asked a few of their staff to do something out of their daily routine. We asked if they could give up a few hours of their day – before or after work – to go on an Orange Sky shift, sit down on our orange chairs and chat with some of people whom we have the privilege of calling our friends. It’s what 1300 of our volunteers around Australia do each and every week, and on that cold and rainy night in May, they got to experience first-hand the tough realities for our friends on the street. But more than that, they got to experience the power of connection and conversation.

Until you have been to an Orange Sky shift, it is hard to fully understand the importance of our six orange chairs. It’s where barriers are broken down, stereotypes are challenged, relationships are built and connections are formed. When you’re sitting on those orange chairs, you’re not thinking about the hundreds of emails that you have sitting on in your inbox or the life admin that you have to do on the weekend. You’re focused on the unique individual sitting on the chair across from you and what is happening in their world. At Orange Sky, we’ve seen how a positive connection can transform a person’s life, and that’s why we’re so passionate about helping to connect people all around Australia – and soon the world.

Before volunteering with Orange Sky, many people tell us they’ve never had any connection with a person experiencing homelessness. Or at least they think they haven’t.

In Australia, there are one in 200 people who are doing it tough. Only five percent of those who are classed as ‘homeless’ by the Australian Bureau of Statistics are actually sleeping rough. The other 95 percent are staying in shelters, boarding houses, temporary accommodation or severely crowded homes.

Tell us a little about yourself
Hi, I am Joel and I am 23 years old. I am a Mechanical Trades Assistant at Orange Sky Australia and I specialise in anything carpentry or technical drawing related.

What are you building at the moment?
We are in the final stages of building a laundry van that is headed to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community of Palm Island in North Queensland. We are using a Mercedes Sprinter like we use for our hybrid vehicles, but this time we started with a cab chassis [a truck body]. The canopy was custom made and built off site.

What was it like planning the build?
We got the news that we had to build a vehicle for Palm Island and white-boarded the pros and cons against our current fleet. We then looked at our hybrid vans and laundry vans; how they function, how they can be maintained and how future-proof they are. A few options became clear when discussing the Lockhart River truck around the mechanical quality of the vehicle. It has not always been the easiest of vehicles to maintain so we made the decision to purchase a new vehicle. When everything was drawn up on the whiteboard, we landed on the purchase of a box body cab chassis; the first of its kind for Orange Sky.

What were some of the most important parts of the build process?
A lot of planning goes into this type of build but all of the systems already in our other vehicles stay the same. We have a great base to start with but there is a lot of research and design that needs to happen before the build starts and throughout the whole process. I did a lot of research on the spacial layout of the van and how different components fit inside. Damien specialises in the weight restriction, Nic M looks after the systems, Nic P the mechanical and Steven the electrical. We map all the dependencies on on a little pie chart and get to work.

How do you work together?
Usually we will have a big catch up at the start of the build and try to forecast what the week looks like. We will then try to estimate any times that the van is going to be inaccessible for example, when it goes to get exhaust done or if we have an electrician in to work on something specific. In terms of the actual HQ staff, it is pretty organic as a result of us building a lot of vans together.

What was the hardest thing about the build?
The weight restrictions. It’s a tight payload so we don’t have a lot of weight to work with before it has to be converted to a light ridged license. This would restrict the number of volunteers that could drive and gets in the way of our flexible volunteer models. Other restrictions are space and format for the onboard water.

Eight days, nine cities, twelve Orange Sky shifts and 20,000kms.