By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
Local charity Geelong Mums has won an international award for its work in ensuring the safety of the reused and recycled baby and children’s equipment it hands out.
Along with its sister organisations, St Kilda Mums and Eureka Mums, the organisation has won the Canvas ‘Ante Up’ Non-profit of the Year.
Geelong Mums general manager Kate Kent flew to Washington this week to collect the award along with founder and St Kilda Mums chief Jessica Macpherson.
The award is being made at the Australian Embassy in Washington although Ms Kent said she hoped the blizzard conditions there would relent in time to allow the ceremony to proceed.
Geelong Mums uses a smartphone app developed by US software company Canvas to perform a safety check on all donated bay and children gear.
“It’s incredible that we are about to receive this for our work,” Ms Kent said before departing on Tuesday.
“As a lean organisation, we were getting buried in a mountain of paper forms and manual entry processes required to conduct product safety checks and track inventory.
“It allows volunteers to access the app at anytime and anywhere to safety check cots, car restraints, prams and other items so that they meet the current Australian safety standards.
“We also use Canvas to measure impact, recording what we give to whom, where and when.
“Reference data for products, safety recalls, supplier contact information is all saved in the one place.
“We can photograph each item and record the date of manufacture and serial numbers.”
Ms Kent said the trio of organisations had been gifted lifetime use of the software through the Ante-Up program and as the 2015 winner, was able to choose another non-profit organisation to receive the same benefit, nominating New York charity Baby Buggy, which does similar work to Geelong Mums.
Canvas founder James Quigley said Geelong Mums, St Kilda Mums and Eureka Mums won the award for demonstrating a passion to make a difference in their communities by embracing technology.
