Salvation Army’s ‘Honoured Friends’ go extra mile to help needy
Salvation Army honoured friends Tony and Lana Miller help the Dulwich Hill Outreach Service on Christmas Eve. (Photo supplied by Major Hilton Harmer OAM)
The Salvation Army has thanked two of its “honoured friends” who, in addition to their generous bequest, have also donated their time to the organisation.
Just before Christmas, Tony and Lana Miller contacted The Salvation Army’s Major Hilton Harmer. They told Major Harmer they “wanted to do something special” for a community outreach program that he runs from Dulwich Hill Corps in Sydney.
Tony and Lana are Honoured Friends, a group of Salvation Army supporters who have made a bequest to the organisation in their will.
“Our Honoured Friends [aged pensioners Tony and Lana] purchased, prepared and delivered take-away containers of turkey, ham, salad, coleslaw, bread rolls and a slice of Christmas cake to 80 residents of boarding houses in Sydney’s inner-west on Christmas Eve,” says Major Hilton Harmer.
“They were absolutely delightful talking to the people as they handed out the meals."
On Saturday, 5 January Major Harmer presented Tony and Lana with an Appreciation Certificate for Outstanding Service to The Salvation Army.
“And I wrote to Tony and thanked him and Lana,” says Major Harmer. “He wrote back and said, ‘please don’t be too lavish with your appreciation, we did what we did for our Lord Jesus Christ and we did what we did for the needs of the people in the community’.”
Every Tuesday night, as part of The Salvation Army’s Dulwich Hill Outreach Service, Major Harmer visits residents of boarding houses in Sydney’s inner-west. He also visits various residents in private homes who are struggling to make ends meet. Taking donated food and other goods, he is able to provide comfort and support to some of Sydney’s poorest people.
Explaining how the ministry began in July last year, he tells the story of a boarding house he happened to visit while helping a former homeless man move into his new accommodation.
One of the other residents approached him asking for assistance, “So I went down and I’ve never seen such a terrible sight in all my life here in Australia,” says Major Harmer.
“There were so many cockroaches – I mean thousands, thousands of cockroaches running around the room ... and this man was sleeping on the floor. He had nothing.”
So, after helping to furnish the man’s room, Major Harmer began a small ministry dropping off items of food to residents of the boarding house once a week. Now he visits 10 boarding houses and a number of private homes in the area and delivers food donated by Oz Harvest and other supporters.
“It’s just developed into a ministry of its own,” he says.
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