Club Maitland City Takes Foundation to New Heights

Hayley — who is the Operations Manager of Community & Marketing at Club Maitland City — has been at the helm since its inception in July 2023, leading it to its now four local major partners: Harry’s House, Carries Place, Maitland Region Community Support (MRCS) and the 2024 addition, Friends of Palliative Care.

“We sort of wanted to make sure each partner looked after different things, we've got domestic violence, homelessness, a respite for families with kids with cancer — so palliative care was something different,” Hayley said.

“But it was still local and that's what was important to us keeping it with local charities.”

In January this year, CMC Foundation began its partnership with Friends of Palliative Care — a service which provides support to individuals, their families and carers in the Maitland, Dungog, Singleton, Cessnock and surrounding areas, with life-limiting illnesses.

“They work closely with palliative care hospitals, and they get referrals from a special care team to do last wishes for people,” Hayley said.

“They've also been doing a program where they do a prescription payment plan where they pay for people's prescriptions.”

The new partnership came from a relationship created after the Club’s staff participated in a fundraiser walk for the charity two years in a row — seeing what the service achieves over the years meant it was a no brainer when they reached out with sponsorship opportunities.

As for the future of the foundation, Hayley is focused on growing it and ensuring its place in the community is cemented.

“This year my main focus is growing it and getting it bigger and bigger, so that we can help as many as people as we can,” Hayley said.

“We know there's only so much that we can do, but for example Maitland has one of the highest rates of domestic violence so staying on top of those things is a big concern in the community.”

Hayley has been getting out into the community and the industry to learn more and absorb as much information about leading a foundation to ensure it is the best it can be — she even mentioned how valuable attending the 2024 Clubs & Community Awards was for her philanthropic growth.

“We went down to the awards last Thursday which meant seeing things that are at the next level, seeing all of the videos was giving me all these ideas — it was good to sort of get out there and see what other folks are doing and see what else we can do to help,” she said.

“It's only going to get bigger and bigger, the Club’s contribution is going to get bigger — so it's exciting to see where it's going to end up.”