In recent times, there has been much publicity for charities and fundraisers for overseas disasters and the like. This got us thinking about how the team here at AppleUsers.org could assist others less fortunate than ourselves, but it was felt that we’d rather support a “local” charity, so we set out a few criteria to help us decide which organization we’d like to help promote.

Some of the criteria we used to help us select an appropriate group, included (in no particular order):

• Ideally be a national based organisation (as our readership is national, and our own team is currently spread across at least three states)
• Provides services to the Youth of Australia
• Preferably have some relevance to technology

and one group immediately sprung to mind — The Smith Family!

So, AppleUsers.org has adopted The Smith Family as our preferred charity and we encourage all our readers to learn more about the work The Smith Family does to provide support and services to more than 30,000 disadvantaged children and young people around Australia.

We have provided The Smith Family advertising space in each issue of The AppleUsers Spotlight [See Page 5 of the Apr/May Spotlight for an example] to help promote the work they perform and we will welcome any editorial piece they wish to submit to keep us up to date with their various appeals and outcomes. They have provided us with a brief overview of the services they provide, which we have also and of course you can always duck over to their website.

The Smith Family’s Winter Appeal will be conducted during the months of May and June and we urge all our readers to consider donating to this worthy cause.

Or you may wish to sponsor a disadvantaged Australian child — It takes less than $1 a day provide them with the financial assistance and access to a critical network of ‘Life Skills’ programs that help them realise their potential.

The Smith Family