For Sunshine Coast father-of- three Ryan O’Connor, the festive season brings his own childhood experience of Christmas into sharp relief.
“We didn’t always have everything we wanted at Christmas,” he says.
“I came from a single-parent household and I understand how much pressure that put on my mum. And I know how hard my family worked around us to actually make it a special time of year.”
It’s these memories that shape the way the dealer principal of Sunshine Toyota views Christmas now – not as the glossy ideal sold in movies, but as a season that can land like a weight on families who are already struggling. And it’s why Ryan ensured Toyota joined My Weekly Preview’s Adopt a Family campaign as a partner for the first time this year.
“Charity starts at home and our home is the Sunshine Coast. This is such a great initiative and we should be involved.”
Ryan’s own young family – children aged three, five and seven, all with birthdays crowding the December–February period – also brings the issue into sharper focus.
“There’s so much pressure on families,” he says. “Even for people who are financially secure, this time of year stretches you. So, when you think about people facing housing insecurity, job instability or domestic violence … the impact is enormous.”
Sunshine Coast Publishing Company general manager Shannon Dawes says staff are “so excited to team up with Sunshine Toyota for the third year of our Adopt a Family program”.
“By adopting a family this Christmas, you really can bring a smile to families in need,” she says.
Adopt a Family is simple in concept but profound in impact. Partner charities provide lists of families in hardship and the age and gender of children within each family who need a present.
Community members, businesses, schools and workplaces then “adopt” a family by purchasing gifts tailored to each child, along with essential items or food vouchers.
The result is dignity: a Christmas morning where children have presents, where parents feel seen and where the season becomes joyful, not overwhelming.
Few understand this transformation better than Donna Hick, who has spent the past five years coordinating Christmas hampers and gifts for local families through CAYAC (Community and Youth Assistance Collective).
Founded in 2018 by Natalie Tynan Barnes, CAYAC supports families navigating domestic violence, homelessness, disability, illness and severe hardship. Its mission is clear: “To keep people afloat during life’s most challenging times, while empowering them to achieve long-term stability”.
Its vision – compassion, dignity and meaningful, long-term support – is reflected in every hamper delivered.
“Christmas is an incredibly stressful time for our clients,” Donna says.
“For domestic violence survivors especially, there’s emotional pressure, anxiety, trauma responses and ongoing fear. Many leave with little or no money, debts created by the abuser and the cost of emergency relocation. They’re rebuilding households from scratch.”
There is also housing instability, the emotional weight of keeping children safe, and the pain of social isolation.
Adopt a Family, Donna says, eases these burdens in ways that go far beyond the material.
“It takes immense financial and emotional pressure off families,” she says.
“It lessens stress and anxiety at this festive time of year. It helps parents feel supported, seen and less alone.
“It creates positive memories, despite difficult circumstances.”
Demand for CAYAC’s services has risen sharply this year, with more requests for food items and vouchers, and more families in acute crisis. At the same time, community donations have dropped, likely due to the cost-of-living and housing crises.
Yet the need is real. In Queensland, one-in-four women has experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner.
On the Sunshine Coast, authorities respond to more than 4000 domestic and family violence incidents every year, and more than 250 protection orders were lodged in a recent 12-month period.
“These families deserve to feel supported,” Donna says. “Adopt a Family gives them not just gifts and food, but stability, dignity and hope.”
That same hope drives the work of Connect Kids: another long-term partner in the campaign. Founded in 2018, Connect Kids aims to break the cycle of generational disadvantage.
“It sounds clichéd, but we’re trying to stop the cycle before it continues to the next generation,” says founder Gordon Barratt.
“Our main program is volunteer mentoring – about 80 children at the moment. But when a child presents with issues beyond what a volunteer can help with, we put the family into an intensive support program and essentially do whatever it takes.”
That might mean housing support, counselling, school transport, linking families to services or simply being an ear when someone needs to vent.
But the pressures are intensifying.
“There’s been a huge increase in demand for all our services,” Gordon says.
“Cost of living, housing uncertainty –I can’t see an end to either any time soon. And those pressures lead to a whole array of social issues.”
Substance use rises. Household violence escalates. More children disengage from school. Youth homelessness is also increasingly visible, with the most vulnerable being those under 16, who cannot legally access funded shelters.
“Some children under 15 are sleeping on the streets because the system doesn’t provide a solution for them,” Gordon says.
“It’s a huge failing.”
That’s why the Adopt a Family campaign matters so deeply.
“So many of our families are right on the poverty line,” Gordon says. “The stress of knowing they can’t give their kids presents is overwhelming. This campaign genuinely changes Christmas for them. It shows them that the community cares.”
My Weekly Preview’s Adopt a Family campaign is built on one idea: that a community is strongest when it looks after its own. For Ryan, Donna and Gordon, that belief isn’t theoretical, it’s lived.
It’s a child in a mentoring program who wakes up to a present with their name on it. A mother who fled violence receiving a food hamper that lets her cook a meal she thought was impossible. A teenager couch surfing who realises strangers care about their future.
For Ryan, supporting Adopt a Family isn’t just an act of charity, but an act of leadership: “As a community leader, we’ve got to try to inspire other people. ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ has always stuck with me. The community starts with the kids and we’ve got to inspire them so that, one day, they give back, too.”
by the numbers
Median house prices have climbed above $1 million, with total growth of 70-80 per cent over five years, putting home ownership out of reach for many.
Strong population growth (forecast to reach 565,700 by 2046) is driving housing demand faster than new dwellings can be built. Shortfalls in supply are pushing up house prices and rents across major centres
Rents are rising steeply with some households spending up to 40 per cent or more of total income on rent. Very low vacancy rates intensify competition and keep rents elevated.
At least 1205 people were experiencing homelessness in 2021 (a 54 per cent increase since 2016), with media reports indicating the situation has likely worsened since.
The region faces severe rental unaffordability, a one per cent rental vacancy rate and ongoing cost-of-living pressures, all of which significantly increase homelessness risk.
Young people who are experiencing homelessness make up to 15 per cent of the region’s homeless population.
