HITsa Charitable Fund
At HITsa, we believe that every individual should be able to access quality training and development opportunities.
We have committed HITsa Charitable Fund, the rebranded Booze Brothers Staff Charitable Fund, to be our vehicle that drives this endeavour.
Booze Brothers Staff Charitable Fund was established in 2002 and has donated more than $700k to South Australian Charities since inception.
With the sale of the Booze Brothers hotels and bottleshops in 2022, the charitable fund changed its name and elected to focus its ongoing fundraising activities to improving the access of marginalised groups to training and development opportunities.
Our commitment to supporting South Australian registered charities and service organisations is as strong as ever. 100% of all donations go towards our cause, just as they have since 2002.
HITsa acknowledges the generous support of Adrian and Leon Saturno, which allows every cent to count.
If you require further information, please contact Olivia Muller, Executive Officer – [email protected]; 08 8375 2800
2025 Donation Recipients
Four Reasons Why
Four Reasons Why is a grassroots charity dedicated to supporting vulnerable individuals, youth and families across the Limestone Coast. Based in Mt Gambier and founded in 2017 by local single mother and solo parent of 4 children (her reasons why) Trudi Shelton with a board of 6 like-minded dedicated, skilled and compassionate members who are all hands on.
Through the generosity of local and metropolitan businesses, clubs, individuals, schools, fundraisers, small grants Four Reasons Why is able to help hundreds of locals in need through various initiatives and our targeted campaigns which are the heartbeat of our mission—each one crafted to respond to real issues affecting our community. These campaigns shine a light on mental health, domestic violence, and youth disadvantage and raise awareness for those in need.
Our campaigns are Winter Wear, warming local children. The Essentials – hygiene items. SMAP – Sports Membership Assistance Program – sports fees. Christmas Kindness – gifts, voucher packs. We provide refurbished whitegoods and pre loved goods & furniture to survivors of domestic abuse, driving lessons for disadvantaged youth and the list goes on.
Our goal is always the same: to spark connection, inspire hope, and create lasting change. Every campaign and initiative is rooted in lived experience, ensuring our message is authentic, relatable, and impactful and always achieved by a team effort of like-minded kindness warriors helping make it all happen.
EmployCare
EmployCare Inc. is a South Australian not-for-profit organisation, completely managed by volunteers, dedicated to empowering individuals facing barriers to employment. Founded in 2020 by career development practitioner Tina Tedesco-Vella, EmployCare specialises in providing tailored career counselling and career development services to people with disabilities, mental health conditions, and disadvantaged youth and adults.
EmployCare offers one-on-one career coaching sessions that are available in-person, via phone, or video conference and customised online career development modules. These services are designed to help clients identify their strengths, build confidence, and navigate career transitions in an ever-changing job market.
Adelaide City Care
Adelaide City Care has been set up as a public benevolent organisation to provide assistance to the disadvantaged members of the community including new arrivals to South Australia. The mission of City Care is empowering people for life change.
In 2006, the new migrant demographic was recognised as a potentially disadvantaged group and, as such, these services were available to those newly arrived to Australia. Through Adelaide City Care, programs were conceptualised and came into being. These initiatives assist new arrivals combat social isolation, foster social inclusion and increase their employability. They are also geared towards helping migrants ease their settlement in Australia, assimilate with the broader community and improve their family lifestyle.
We are committed to support those who are new arrivals to South Australia by also providing information about assistance that is available,including social welfare services, employment, housing, accommodation, banking and finance.
Since its conception, over 6,700 new migrants have attended our programs and used facilities offered by Adelaide City Care. We have helped migrants, students, skilled workers and refugees.
Programs we provide free of charge are Meet and Greet Service, New Arrivals Dinner, Employment Seminar, Food Relief Outreach, English Class, and International Fiesta Sunday.
Food on the Table
Food on the Table is a 100% not-for-profit community organisation dedicated to providing free, nutritious meals to South Australians in need. We support individuals and families experiencing homelessness, escaping family and domestic violence, living in temporary accommodation, and facing food insecurity.
Since our beginnings as Café Outside the Square in 2018, we have prepared and distributed over 340,000 meals, ensuring that no one in our community goes hungry. Through our unique Soup Kitchen model, we prepare, cook, and deliver wholesome meals via a network of frontline charity partners across South Australia. These partners then distribute the meals to those in need, including people affected by homelessness, domestic violence, youth hardship, Aboriginal communities, and new arrivals.
Each year, our dedicated team—including staff, board members, and volunteers—delivers over 135,000 meals to vulnerable South Australians. But our impact goes beyond food. By providing access to nutritious meals, we help improve long-term health outcomes, support children’s development and education, and strengthen communities.
At Food on the Table, we believe that everyone deserves access to nutritious food and a brighter future. Together, we can break the cycle of poverty and build a healthier, more connected community.
Rufus
Anyone can fall victim to homelessness. For example, victims of domestic violence, the unemployed, mental disability as well as other reasons too numerous to mention. RufUS works closely with many other charities/organisations that find housing accommodation for their clients. RufUS fits out the dwelling with essential furniture and items needed by their clients as they begin their new start to life. Our Mission is to provide essential household items to the homeless and victims of domestic violence as they go from a disrupted life into their newly provided housing accommodation. Our Purpose is to give the homeless a new start to life with hope and dignity.
RufUS began in the early 2000s with a small group of volunteers providing food and clothing to some of Adelaide’s homeless. In 2010, the RufUS Charitable Trust was established and its volunteers began fitting out newly found housing accommodation for those in need with essential household furniture and items for day to day living. Over time, this service grew to the extent that RufUS is now the number one provider to government and non-government agencies for the essential household items required by their homeless/ DV clients.
In 2018, Rufus was incorporated – RufUS S.A Limited. Its warehouse is located at Wingfield SA from where we deliver our services to the greater metropolitan area of Adelaide.
MCCSA Jobs Café
Jobs Café has recently moved under the umbrella of the Multicultural Communities Council of SA… hence “MCCSA Jobs Café”: this has added an employment support arm to MCCSA and provided a venue for Jobs Café’s events.
Whilst the “one on one” coffee and chats have continued throughout, the monthly “Last Tuesday of the Month” events are being held again after a forced eighteen month hiatus.
During the last year (April 2024 – April 2025), 217 new persons have been registered and 85 jobs secured: it is one of the features of the exercise that many who have had access and benefited from their Jobs Café connection do not maintain contact even when they have found employment… a joy that would be wonderful to share.
The monthly events are attracting 30 – 40 attendees and the mix of formal and fun continues to be attractive. Added to this has been MCCSA’s catering!
The ongoing and extraordinarily generous support of HITsa has made a huge positive impact on the progress of MCCSA Jobs Café: saying thank you seems hardly enough. The real impact is in the unheralded contribution to helping people in securing roles which lifts their dignity and gives them the confidence to aspire… and never look back.
Women’s Community Centre (SA) Inc
The Women’s Community Centre is one of the oldest Community Centres in South Australia and the only “women’s only” community centre in the metropolitan area. We provide a wide range of services to the women of Adelaide and surrounding communities.
We began as the result of goodwill and tenacity of the St Peter’s Women’s Group, who wanted to make a difference to the lives of other women to mark the first International Women’s Year in 1975. Born out of an understanding that women from all walks of life were looking for a place to meet as a community outside of their home, the proposal for a meeting place was well responded with generosity and wisdom by the St. Peter’s Council who offered the space, free of rent in the beginning.
In 1977, WCCSA received funding from the Government of the late Premier, the Honourable Don Dunstan through the lobbying of Ms Deborah McCulloch and the Women’s Electoral Lobby. Being the birthplace of the first Women’s Shelter, Rape Crisis Centre and Women’s Information Service in SA, the Women’s Community Centre’s history has been interwoven into the history of the Women’s advancement in South Australia.
It soon evolved to a state-wide service which is now called the Women’s Community Centre SA Inc, supporting women from every corner of the state who origins are from Australia and every part of the world! Today, the Centre is self funded and run by volunteers. All services are run by Women for Women!
In the last 12 months, WCCSA has continued to run weekly workshops such as mosaic, weaving/craft, computer skills, yoga, community lunches and gardening, as well as distributing meals and fresh produce to the local community. Importantly, WCCSA’s mentoring of young women including new migrants has lead to several women obtaining new employment and change of career path. In addition to the regular workshops, WCCSA has also hosted a series of events themed ‘Women who Love’ which included ‘Women who Love Grandmother Stories,’ ‘Women who love Dance and Movement’, and ‘Women who Love Singing’. These were all aimed to share and celebrate the lives and passions of ordinary women heroes who live among us. The event of Grandmother’s Stories featuring the sharing of stories by grandmothers themselves and by their granddaughters was truly a tribute to our women elders who have paved the way for a better lives for all of us. The screening of documentary film ‘Maggie’s Story’, highlighting the life of a Scottish woman who travelled alone to Australia from Scotland on a ‘Bride Ship’ in early 1900 was very well received and certainly left its mark in our hearts and inspired many. The documentary film was made by her granddaughter.
WCCSA also celebrated several cultural events such as Diwali, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Indian New Year and Women’s Day. These celebrations are bringing together our culturally diverse community while enhancing mutual understanding and respect for different ways of being. Our GALA Dinner 2024 was a very successful event with several women speaking publicly for the first time in their lives and some even sharing heart wrenching stories of how the Women’s Community Centre had changed their lives for the better.
2024 Donation Recipients
RufUs SA Limited
RufUs Charity provides a unique and valuable service to the members of the Greater Adelaide and South Australian community,
Currently, RufUs Charity provides vulnerable members of the community, specifically, the recently homeless and victims of domestic violence and others, with the opportunity to “help create a fresh start’”, by providing and delivering furniture and household items including whitegoods, to enable people to rebuild their lives, with a degree of dignity.
RufUs sources furniture, whitegoods and household items from donations offered to us from the community. This becomes a WIN WIN situation, as people in the community have many useful and serviceable items, too good for landfill and equally there are people that do not have or cannot afford to purchase, so Rufus acts as a ‘go between’ those who have and those who have not.
RufUs Charity works on a referral basis, from social workers and support agencies, who have come to rely on Rufus as a source of household items to support their clients with.
RufUs is known in the helping community as being reliable, providing items in good clean condition, providing over and above the requested items and delivering it with a smile and a positive outlook.
On average, over the past few years, we have supported well over 300 families each year and the demand is ever growing. We are proudly 100% volunteer run and receive no Government funding, yet through the generosity of organisations like HITsa and many others in the community and business circles, we are able to be self funded.
RufUs has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 2011 to the well known and reliable service that it has become. With continued support from the business nexus and general community, Rufus will be able to maintain and enhance its current service and provide a much needed service to South Australia.
Women’s Community Centre of SA Inc
WCCSA was born out of the determination of a group of women from the Stepney area who wanted to make a difference in the lives of other women as way to honour the very first International Women’s Day in 1975. Their decision to have a community meeting place for women was a result of their 700 door-knocking consultation of women in the aera. The women who were consulted all expressed the need for a place to meet with other women outside of their homes. With the generosity of St Peters Council, the Stepney Women’s Centre became a reality and the meeting place for these women.
While women’s lives have vastly changed in many ways in the four decades since the Centre’s inception, women’s need to met and connect with one another outside of their homes has not changed but increased. Women who have experienced trauma such as domestic violence, life changing illness, elder abuse, bullying, poverty, homelessness and social/cultural isolation are often seeking a safe place to socialise and improve their mental health and wellbeing, to learn new skills and spread their wings again. Hence, WCCSA plays the role of nurturing resilience in these women.
WCCSA offers many activities at very affordable prices or free of cost. Current offering include gardening, cooking, exercise, creative art, healing and meditation. It also boasts a very affordable OpShop and healthy meals cooked with love. All of which are often given free of cost to those in need. The Centre also distributes free bread and fresh produce to the community collected as rescue food from local vendors. WCCSA is self funded and generates its income through the Opshop, meals, workshops, donations and fund raisiing events. The Centre is run by women volunteers who grow self confidence, create lasting friendships, learn technical and other life skills, all in the process of giving back to the community.
Circle of Friends Australia (Jobs Café Initiative)
The “Jobs Café” concept (there is no physical Jobs Café) evolved at Hopes Café, Clayton Church, Beulah Park, South Australia as a response to the significant number of those visitors who were demoralised by constant rejection in their efforts to secure work. And the recognition that in our community the establishment and maintenance of a person’s dignity is tied to being employed.
The project began as a stand-alone exercise in late August 2019. To date there are 1015 job-seeking registrants (people from diverse cultures, refugees, migrants, homeless persons, those differently-abled, men and women, old and young…) and 381 have secured positions….plus a network of 665 supporters (including members of the marvelous Circle of Friends Association), all contributing at various levels.
Jobs Café is not a Job Agency per se… in supporting the job seeker’s own efforts to identify roles, it also uses its networks to add possible opportunities and then encourages and assists the job seeker in pursuing and securing them. The exercise requires significant self-help on the part of the job seeker, but working together success has every chance. Jobs Café is independent, purely voluntary and informal in its activity: there is limited external funding** of Jobs Café and no connection with the bureaucracy….it simply seeks to help in this particular area of community need.
Activity is now largely based at Cibo, The Avenues Shopping Centre corner of Payneham Road and Nelson Street, Stepney. Each new job seeker is asked to join the Coordinator for a coffee and a chat: this face to face meeting is important in establishing trust and reducing risk for all involved as we work together in pursuing employment opportunities.
“The Last Tuesday of the Month” 5.00 – 7.00pm is an evening of some formality (a job seeking topic, sector speakers, success stories) and networking activities: attendance is free and has averaged 50 persons at each event.
And for those seeking to participate and tap into what is being offered there is only one simple requisite: “Just walk through the virtual door of Jobs Café”!
Seeds of Affinity – Pathways for Women
We are continuing our support of this essential support organisation from 2023. Seeds of Affinity support women with the lived experience of prison to re-integrate into their communities. They offer friendship, a sense of community and a range of women-centred and peer-led programs to support women transitioning from prison back in their communities. Many of the women Seeds of Affinity support are vulnerable and have significant and ongoing experiences of trauma. Learning programs include life skills in cooking, budgeting, health and wellbeing, as well as pathways to employment programs that build technology, hospitality and business skills through a social enterprise. Women completing Seeds of Affinity learning programs often go on to complete formal vocational education courses having developed their confidence and communication skills in safe, accepting and supported learning environment, enhancing their employment and therefore life opportunities.
Please take a few moments to watch this video to meet Seeds of Affinity and it’s founder, Linda Fisk. https://learningchangeslives.org.au/seeds-of-affinity/
2023 Donation Recipients
Seeds of Affinity – Pathways for Women – is a not-for profit volunteer run community group established by and for women with lived prison experience. Founded in 2006 to address the gaps in services provided to women in prison and particularly upon release.
www.seedsofaffinity.org
Circle of Friends Australia (Jobs Café Initiative) – Local community groups who support asylum seekers and refugees living in the community, or visit those in detention. Circle of Friends welcome and assist asylum seekers and refugees with the difficult process of establishing themselves in Australia, or with the challenges of detention and the asylum application process.
Gold Foundation – Providing support for young people on the Autism Spectrum and their families. Gold Foundation operates Australia’s-first ‘Shine Like Gold!’ Mobile Café social innovation project to provide supported employment to young autistic superheroes.
Kickstart for Kids – A South Australian Children’s Charity founded on the belief that every child, regardless of their social or economic background, should have an equal chance to succeed. Kickstart for Kids facilitates this belief by running school breakfast and lunch programs, mentoring programs and providing basic clothing and healthcare support in South Australian schools.
