Help us open the door to others

Each year The Salvation Army provides assistance to over one million Australians - to continue providing high quality community services, we need your help.

This year, we'd once again like to invite you to help us make a difference by supporting our Red Shield Appeal. Let's work together to make Australia a better place - because we're all in this together!

The Red Shield Appeal is The Salvation Army's major annual fundraising drive to help finance our vast network of social and community services. The national fundraising target for 2010 is $75million.

Officially commencing in April and concluding at the end of June, the Appeal involves three main components:

• National Doorknock Appeal - Involving around 100,000 volunteer collectors, the Red Shield Appeal Doorknock provides opportunity for people to give at the door in support of The Salvation Army's good work. The doorknock takes place on the last weekend in May each year.
• Direct mail campaign - Around half of all Red Shield Appeal funds raised are given in response to The Salvation Army's direct mail campaign.

The first Red Shield Appeal Doorknock was held in 1965 in response to concern about the need for funds to meet the ever-increasing demand on Salvation Army social services.

While the appeal has been expanded and refined enormously since that time, demand upon Salvation Army services continues to increase. Funds raised through the Red Shield Appeal each year are needed more than ever if the Salvos are to maintain their services in the local community.

Because we're well aware that our valued donors work hard for their money, we ensure that we work just as hard to make sure that every donation is used effectively. The Salvation Army's administration costs are kept to a minimum, with one of the most efficient rates of any charity.

Credit card donations can also be made using our secure online donation form or by calling 13 SALVOS (13 72 58).

And don’t forget, you can donate on the weekend of the doorknock.

We need 100,000 doorknock volunteers to help reach our goal of $9.7million.
You can play a vital role in the doorknock by giving just a few hours of your time to help knock on doors in your neighbourhood.
You can register you interest in volunteering online.

If you have any other questions about getting involved in the doorknock, you can contact your local Salvos.

Media Releases

Journalists and other interested parties should visit our Media Centre to view the latest Red Shield Appeal media releases.

Press Advertisement

Email elyse.dickson@aue.salvationarmy.org for various sizes

TV Advertisement

Radio Advertisement

For more information, contact our media unit.

Find out more about our social and community services

For information about what the Salvos offer in your area, we have regional brochures that can be downloaded below

• ACT and Queanbeyan Region
• Brisbane Region
• Far North Queensland Region - Atherton and Cairns
• Central Coast Region
• Gladstone Region
• Gold Coast and Tweed Region
• Illawarra Region
• Newcastle and Hunter Region
• Rockhampton Capricorn Coast Region
• Townsville Region

See where your donation goes
Find out more about why you should give

Ella's story

Twenty-year-old Ella is one of the many young people helped through The Salvation Army Oasis Youth Support Network to find their potential. Told to leave home when she was just 16, Ella lived on the streets and slept on trains before she came to Oasis with a crystal methamphetamine addiction.

Ella was helped into rehabilitation and stable accommodation, and because she has a passion for music and skating, she became involved in Oasis's Streetradio.net, which allows disadvantaged young people to gain skills in radio production.

Ella now hosts a weekly Oasis skateboarding and music program, has completed a Foxtel media course and a three-month paid stint at a commercial radio station in Sydney, and was recently offered a full-time job in commercial broadcasting.

Neill's story

Neill was first taken into care aged 10, already – incredibly – with a substantial alcohol problem and the accompanying negative behaviours. “I was considered a pest to society,” he says.

As a broken young teenager at a boys home in WA, Neill was made to polish shoes in the hundreds as punishment for bad behaviour. “I did shoe shining as a punishment, 360 pairs every Sunday. I hated it,” says Neill.

The system soon helped ensure Neill became more than a young ‘pest’. Not only was he exposed in boys homes to children with far more serious problems than he, but Neill became the victim of repeated, horrific sexual abuse.

On one occasion Neill lashed out and seriously attacked the perpetrator. He was moved to a maximum security juvenile detention centre, the judge telling him he was “a waste of a person” who would “never amount to anything.” A school report supported this verdict with the words: “This kid won’t make it to (the age of) 40.” His life as a young adult was a messy mixture of drugs, violence, trouble with the law and broken relationships.

When Neill arrived at The Salvation Army Flagstaff crisis centre in Melbourne, he looked like a wild man. With hair well below his waist, and a beard to his stomach, he hadn’t showered in months. He had been drinking methylated spirits, sleeping on the streets or in a paddock surrounded by cows, and had reached the point where even his own children were scared of him.   

At Flagstaff, Neill was given food, clean clothes, a bed and, most importantly, access to a network of support services that would help him on the road to change. “Monday morning I found myself at an AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] meeting held at a Salvation Army church,” says Neill. “That’s where my life turned around.”

Today, cheerful and clean-shaven, Neill is seeing a dream fulfilled running his own shoe shine business at the “Paris end” of Melbourne’s Collins Street, named “Shiny Shoes Shoe Shine” after his childhood nickname “Shiny Shoes”.

He says, “I never thought, when I walked into The Salvation Army that day, that four years later this is where I’d be.

“Now, because I’m sober, I’m able to spend every weekend with my children, and my ex-wife is on good terms too. I run AA meetings to help others.

“Today I have hope because the Salvos helped and said things could be better.”