Jim’s Story

A banker by profession, I became involved with Good Samaritan Industries, an arm of the Methodist Church in Western Australia and joined the Board. This organisation was developing into a major employer of people with varying, often significant disabilities. It was driven by the dignity and sense of pride that came with employment for essentially unemployable people as well as training people who could make it with a bit of support to take their place in outside industry. 

I see a parallel with Wayside – a place where people are treated with dignity, supported and made to feel valued – also adding hope to ‘love over hate’. 

In more recent times I became increasingly interested in homelessness and the role of various forms of social housing to supplant the concept of throwing up towers of units and concentrating disadvantaged people in ghettos. 

I suppose you could say I have always felt that railing against the system that allows this sort of preventable disadvantage was easy, but getting involved in doing something about it mattered far more! 

I first encountered Wayside when working in Sydney in the early 70s.  I was introduced to Rev Ted Noffs and became aware of what he was doing at the Wayside Chapel. It seemed to me that what Ted Noffs was doing was Christianity at its best. It was many years later that I rekindled my latent interest in Wayside which played an important place in the heart of a close friend who was assisted immeasurably by Wayside. 

It was in this way I became a modest supporter and decided that as I couldn’t be a major supporter, a legacy made sense, and it was an easy thing to arrange. 

All I want to get out of my gift in Will is a sense of satisfaction that a ministry to the most disadvantaged and downtrodden members of our community will continue to meet this desperate need.