Connect You Too News

On Friday 23^rd May 2025, Connect You Too’s staff, board members, volunteer drivers and meals volunteers came together at Club Iluka for a special Volunteers Week morning tea.

Connect You Too is lucky enough to have 47 volunteers to provide community transport and delivery of meals to people in our community. Our volunteers include twenty-one drivers for our transport services, seven board members and nineteen volunteers with meal delivery services. They have volunteered for Connect You Too for a combined total of 283 years, with one volunteer clocking up a staggering 29 years’ service before their recent retirement.

‘Connect You Too appreciates all the community volunteering of the team who help throughout the year. We could not help our customers without their dedication and service’, said Ray Chesher, Chairperson of CU2 Board.

Each Connect You Too volunteer received a National Volunteer Week Appreciation Certificate, whilst a few special ‘Recognise and Reward’ awards for special recognition.

“Our new ‘Recognise and Reward’ program was brought to fruition by our board member, Garry Payne. He wanted to introduce a system to show appreciation towards our valuable volunteers and their contribution to the Clarence Valley community”, Ray explained.

Connect You Too would like to thank Access Fuels, Bowlo Sports & Leisure Yamba, Harwood Hotel, Coles Yamba and Lawrence Tavern for sponsoring these awards.

Their generosity allows us to give thanks to our volunteers for their own generosity. The ‘Recognise and Reward’ awards with vouchers from our sponsors were presented to:

• Ray Hoad - 10 years of dedicated service to volunteer driving and for compliments from customers – Coles Yamba voucher

• John Nolan – Longest serving meals volunteer – Harwood Hilton voucher

• Greg Starr – Longest serving transport volunteer – Yamba Bowlo voucher

• Debbie Thwaites – 5 years of service for Clarence Meals – Lawrence Tavern voucher

• Leonie Lancaster – 5 years of service for Clarence Meals – Harwood Hilton voucher

• Peter Jarman – Senior volunteer transport – Access Fuels voucher

• Tony Crupi – Youngest volunteer transport and for compliments from customers – Lawrence Tavern voucher

• Dale Mackie – Senior volunteer meals -Harwood Hilton voucher

• Jenny Gillies – Youngest volunteer meals – Yamba Bowlo voucher

• Paul Bailey – For compliments from customers – Lawrence Tavern voucher

• Darryl Brotherson – For compliments from customers – Coles Yamba voucher

• Gren Little – For compliments from customers – Harwood Hilton voucher

• David Anderson – For compliments from customers – Coles Yamba voucher

Thankyou speeches were relayed from Kevin Hogan and Richie Williamson on the achievements of our volunteers.

Our services are getting busier and if you have a bit of time and want to remain active in your community, call Connect You Too on 6645 3200 for an application form and see how rewarding a volunteer role with us can be. We would love to hear from people based throughout the Clarence Valley but especially from Grafton where the demand for transport is high. 

Connect You Too has been busy helping the community get out and about during May 2025.

In May 2025, we did a total of 2,790 trips with a total of 86,639 service kms for 549 customers. Our popular destinations included 161 trips to Ballina; 155 trips to Coffs Harbour; 19 trips to the Gold Coast; 840 trips to Grafton; 126 trips to Lismore and 309 trips to the Yamba/Maclean area.

We managed to get the community to 1,306 Specialist and GP appointments; 27 Hospital visits (Day Surgery drop off/pick-up); 553 social trips & 677 shopping trips.

In May, our social trips travelled to Brunswick Heads for lunch at the Brunswick Hotel. 63 customers enjoyed this outing. This month we are visiting Urunga for lunch at the Ocean View Hotel.

Our monthly shoppers visited Coffs Harbour this month and are due to visit Ballina in June.

In May 2025, our fortnightly shopping buses to Grafton Shoppingworld had travellers from Glenreagh (4); Brooms Head (9); Iluka (19); Wooli (7) and Yamba/Maclean (5).

We also transported 78 customers from Malabugilmah and Baryulgil into Grafton for medical and shopping services during May 2025.

Our Clarence Meals service delivered 1790 meals, 428 desserts and 49 soups during May 2025. We were able to do welfare checks, have a quick chat and help our customers see a friendly face.

Clarence Meals provides delivered meals to Iluka, Maclean and Yamba and surrounds from suppliers including Gourmet Meals, Lite n’ Easy and Meals on Wheels Grafton. For more information call 6646 6742. 

If you need help with transport or meals, call Connect You Too at Townsend on 6645 3200 to see if you qualify for any subsidies or assistance.

SAVE THE DATE FOR OUR OPEN DAY

Everyone is invited to Connect You Too’s “Around the World” Safari Open Day on Wednesday 17^th September between 10am and 1pm. There will be plenty of activities, displays, games, giveaways, food and music for everyone to enjoy. We are offering free transport to our open day too! Call to book your seat on 6645 3200.

During the month of May, Connect You Too got to play Santa and deliver some special hampers to their Clarence Meals customers.

These special hampers were funded by Lions Clubs International Foundation Disaster Recovery with a grant of $23,800. 

The hampers were donated to some school families, fishermen from the Co-Op, community members without housing, others identified by the Salvation Army Resilience Team and some of our seniors in the Clarence Valley community following Cyclone Alfred. A total of 757 hampers were delivered across the Clarence Valley.

Deyann McDonnell, from Lions Yamba, was the co-ordinator of the project and asked Kerry Little of Connect You Too, if she could help identify the seniors in our community who would most benefit from the hampers. Kerry suggested the Connect You Too ‘Clarence Meals’ customers may like to receive a Lions hamper, and Lions were most appreciative of the offer for delivery via Connect You Too volunteers.

The $50 hampers were sourced from IGA who packed and delivered the boxes to the Townsend depot of Connect You Too, where they were stored prior to delivery. They contained a range of groceries, toiletries and even some sweet treats.

Deyann personally visited some of the recipients and witnessed the joy of receiving such a useful gift. “I am grateful for the support and assistance of all involved in this Lions service project,” she stated.

Connect You Too offers meal and transport services, including social bus outings each month. If you need assistance, please call and talk with one of our friendly Customer Care Officers on 6645 3200.