Sir John Reid Community Service Award – 2011/2012

The Sir John Reid Community Service Award honours the contribution to the Club of Sir John Reid, a Past President, Paul Harris Fellow, recipient of the Vocational Service Award and member of the Club from 1936 to 1984, and recognises a person in the Victorian community whose voluntary service is judged to be worthy of special notice.

This year the presentation is made to Mr Todd Jasper for his work with disadvantaged youth, especially through Open Family Australia.  Open Family has been providing outreach support and services to young people at risk since 1978.  Services to street frequenting young people include transitional housing, intensive case management and homeless support, alcohol and other drugs counseling, back to school scholarships, educational and recreational programs, round the clock street outreach as well as the Chatterbox youth outreach bus.

Todd has been providing voluntary support to Open Family since 1998, firstly as a street youth worker and more recently as Chair of the Open Family Australia Volunteer Committee which provides support for homeless and socially disenfranchised young people through more than 100 volunteers.  His activities include over-seeing the operation of the Chatterbox youth outreach bus.  In addition to the provision of food and material aid, the chatterbox is a safe space for at-risk youth to access volunteers who are able to provide referrals to youth service providers and to provide recreational and social activities.  The service has been profiled at National conferences and undertaken a number of initiatives in relation to awareness and strategies to address the problems of alcohol abuse, missing persons, violence and sexual abuse of young people.

Todd has also helped to develop sporting and art appreciation and participation sessions for youth at risk.  As project co-ordinator Todd involved young people in a film workshop production “Talk to me” that featured on Australian Story in 2008, and helped develop the Open Family “Identity Uncut” photography course and exhibition.  At Open Family Todd has also been involved in projects to ascertain the needs of young homeless people in the CBD, worked with others to offer skate parks in the city and participated in the Melbourne “Knife Exchange”.  These outcomes have helped to provide a bridge between late night outreach for this disadvantaged at-risk group and mainstream services.

Todd also undertook voluntary work as a customer service representative at the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria between 2000 and 2004.  More recently he has established a new charitable organisation, “Jasper Brown”, focused on addressing the critical lack of youth specific crisis accommodation in Melbourne.

Todd is able to combine his voluntary activities with full time work as the Procurement and Logistics Manager at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

The Rotary Club of Melbourne considers Todd Jasper to be a most worthy recipient of the Sir John Reid Community Service Award for 2011-12.