CleftPALS is a volunteer organisation. Most of us are parents of cleft kids, or cleft affected adults. Many of us have never been involved with a volunteer group before and find the experience of helping other families hugely rewarding. Want to help us?

Become a member This is the single most effective thing you can do to enable CleftPALS to continue helping others. Being a member gives you lots of support such as newsletters, discounts on feeding equipment, access to other parents. Even better, it helps other families too. More information here.

Your skills Got a bit of time? We can always use people.

• Help with events by organising donations, planning, distributing invitations, getting your friends to attend
• Write an article for our newsletter, website or Facebook
• Run a raffle to fundraise for a good cause
• Organise a regular playdate to support local parents
• Distribute newsletters
• Volunteer as a Contact Parent and talk to other parents about how you coped

Got specialist skills? If you’re a health professional, have a background in events,  marketing or graphic / web design, a teacher or youth worker, or any other skills relevant to our kind of organisation, we’d love to hear from you. Get in contact with your ideas. Donate Do you have access to good or services that we can use for fundraising, in gift hampers or as raffle prizes? Examples include toys, books, non-perishable foods, gift items, voucher for a restaurant meal or a weekend away, and much more. Fundraise As a volunteer group, we constantly fundraise to give back to the cleft affected community. Here are some ideas:

• Help us run a CleftPALS event to raise funds and bring families together
• Host a morning tea fundraiser at your work. Ask people to bring in cakes and snacks, and then donate a gold coin to attend. If you can use brochures to hand out let us know
• Carry a Ritchie’s keyring to support CleftPALS in the Ritchie’s supermarket Community Benefits programme
• Organise a sausage sizzle in support of CleftPALS at your local supermarket or hardware shop
• Ask an organisation or school you’re involved in to get people fundraising for CleftPALS
• Do a walk, run or sporting event and ask friends to sponsor you for CleftPALS

CleftPALS are registered with Everyday Hero. If you or a friend is running an event such as Run Melbourne or any other Everyday Hero event, choose CleftPALS to be your recipient!

You might like to support a specific CleftPALS project:

• Cleft babies often need specialist feeding equipment. This can be a big financial burden on families already struggling with the emotional shock of the baby’s cleft, and dealing with costs associated with hospital visits and time off work. A donation of just $41.00 pays for a Special Needs starter pack for a family in financial need
• Cleftstars is a network for young people aged 9-21 to share their experiences. Involvement in Cleftstars helps kids’ self esteem and become more confident. Donate funds help support Cleftstars events so more kids can attend
• The Give Our Kids A Voice campaign is campaigning to extend speech therapy access for cleft kids. Funds can be used to create information packs to lobby and promote the campaign
• Want to find out more about the causes of clefts and effects? Donate to support a cleft research project
• Want to support families going through surgery? Your donation can be used to help with accommodation for a family travelling from the country, or a gift for the child having surgery or their siblings. Let us know if you can help
• Family support playdates and CleftPALS family events are important for families with young kids to meet and share stories. Donations help subsidize the events for cleft affected families
• Operation Smile helps repair cleft lip and palate around the world. For as little as $240, you can help provide a cleft lip or cleft palate surgery and change a child’s life
• In 2011, two of the Cleftstars will attend an Operation Smile mission – providing hope to cleft affected children in developing countries. Your donation will help them get there
• We want to educate doctors, Maternal Health Nurses, midwives and sonographers about clefts. Your donation can pay for information leaflets to be mailed to professional associations or inserted in conference packs. Let us know if you can help

If you have any questions about getting involved or financial issues please contact us on cleftpalsvic@gmail.com. CleftPALS relies on people just like you. Can you help?