If you’ve been following Orange Sky’s impact for a while, you’ve probably seen or heard something from one of our first friends, Ros.
Ros’ fierce independence and dedication to helping every person she came across, volunteers and friends alike, will go down in Orange Sky history. Ros was an educated business owner, a mother of two and a community-maker when personal challenges led her to experience homelessness. While sleeping rough, Ros sold flowers and befriended people from all walks of life, and used that network to connect others to essential services like Orange Sky, and to communities where they could be cared for and valued.
Episode 5 of The F Word is dedicated to celebrating our dear friend for all her quirks and kindness, featuring interviews with a collection of her friends and admirers.
“She just wanted to help everyone, it was really weird. I’ve never met another person like her. She just wanted to help everyone, it was like, her thing. She’d seen some pretty full on stuff, the worst of it, I think. I just couldn’t understand… she was on a life mission to help everyone.”
“I think if you [offered Ros a mansion on the beach], she’d say ‘thanks but no thanks’. It was… it was Ros’ dream to help homeless and the vulnerable. She had a dream of [buying land and a house] in the hope of getting some of, I call it, ‘her flock’ – you know drug addicts, alcoholics, whatever – [to come] out there where they’re away from the temptations of a bottle shop or a dealer on the street. Sadly it didn’t come to fruition.”
“She didn’t have any fear. She called it the motel of a million stars.”
“I would ask about her family, she would ask about my family […]. When I went to her funeral, the church was absolutely packed.”
Ros’ experience of homelessness was far from stereotypical, and the circumstances that led her to sleeping rough were similarly outside the norm. Prior to her passing, Ros seized the opportunity to challenge stereotypes around homelessness on a far greater scale through Orange Sky, and to be the narrator of her own story.
We are proud that she trusted us to keep her story, and her spark of determination, alive and burning.
