We love Australia Post!

The wonderful folk at Australia Post answered our call for National Geographic magazines by asking Nat Geog if the “Return to Sender” mags they were recycling every month could be donated to us. Today, thanks to their combined efforts, we collected our first instalment of 500 brand new recent edition magazines. Since National Geographics are…

Positively Remarkable Women exhibition

On Saturday 26th May a photography exhibition entitled Positively Remarkable Women will be on show at Women’s College, Sydney University from 4-6pm.  Diana McDonald has taken portraits of 50 women she deems “positively remarkable” and the exhibition includes Footpath Library Founder, Sarah Garnett.  Anyone can attend but please register by emailing [email protected]

Help us get new books from Text Publishing!

Melbourne-based independent company Text Publishing are one of the many great publishers who regularly donate brand new books to The Footpath Library. Text represent a great range of authors including Helen Garner, Tim Flannery, Peter Temple, Kate Holden, John Marsden, Jessica Rudd, Garry Disher, Toni Jordan, Shane Maloney, Yann Martel, Kate Grenville and even Barack…

Channel 7 News Sydney

If you are responding to the story on 7 News tonight and would like to know how to help, please contact the relevant Sydney Manager through the links above.  If you missed it, you can check it out here.

We are a finalist in the National Homelessness Services Awards!

Some fantastic and humbling news: We’ve been named finalists in the National Homelessness Services Achievement Awards for ‘Excellence or Innovation in partnerships in delivery services’ in awards category 4. We’re thrilled that our relationships with our wonderful sponsors has been recognised. Update: We made it to the final three of 130, but didn’t win. We…

National Year of Reading

Our founder, Sarah Garnett, and our chairperson, Jaqui Lane, headed down to Canberra today to help launch the National Year of Reading, an initiative that’s designed to help people discover (and rediscover) the magic of books and reading. We’re participating in the initiative and will have updates here throughout the year.

Australia Day Ambassador

Our founder, Sarah Garnett, headed up to Merriwa, in the Upper Hunter Valley region as an Australia Day ambassador. Here are a couple of pics of how she spent the day, which included talking about how The Footpath Library started and what kind of work we do.              

Charlie Teo’s Australia Day Address

Sarah Garnett was privileged to hear Dr Charlie Teo’s Australia Day address last night at the Sydney Music Conservatorium. His speech on racism, immigration, the tall poppy syndrome, and scientific research, as well as all the things that make Australia a great place to live, was truly inspirational.

StreetSmart’s BIG Dine Out!

Please help those who help us! From 14–24 November, visit a participating cafe or restaurant near you and raise funds for StreetSmart Australia so that they can continue to make grants to organisations like us. More info here.

Bookmarks from St Catherine’s students

The Year 7 students at St Catherine’s in Sydney made some bookmarks to accompany their bookdrive donation. We’re thrilled and know our customers will be too. Truth be told, we’ve been eyeing off a couple we’d like for ourselves and might need the students to get designing and colouring stat!

Free, outdoor libraries? We like the sound of that!

We heard about these fantastic outdoor libraries from a friend of The Footpath Library. We’re officially in love and hope this US-based invention makes its way down under. The premise is that the birdhouse-like structures hold up to about 20 books, and people can borrow and return them at their leisure. Kind of The Footpath…

Brisbane Homeless Connect

It’s almost time for biannual event Homeless Connect again in Brisbane. We’ll be heading down to hand out books, catch up with our clients, and to meet new ones. We think it’ll be a perfect time to pick up a couple of books to enjoy in the spring sunshine or to put away for some…