Knowing her daughter was equipped with everything she needed for a safe, good start was comforting for Clair Harris, founder of Tassie Mums. But she could not ignore the fact that today, almost 1 million Australian children live below the poverty line.
Clair started volunteering at St Kilda Mums, now called Our Village during her maternity leave, feeling fortunate that her daughter had all she needed for a healthy start and wanting to give back to less fortunate families. This initial experience ignited a lifelong dedication to supporting children in need. Upon relocating to Tasmania in 2015, she discovered there were no similar charities to serve the high levels of childhood poverty in the region. The same year, she co-founded Tassie Mums with her close friend Madeleine Glover. Since then, the organization has supported over 10,000 children by providing essential material aid, including clothing, nappies, toiletries, and other necessities.
Tassie Mums distributes carefully curated clothing bundles designed to support a child for 8 to 12 months across all seasons, often bringing families to tears - describing the moment of opening these boxes as “feeling like Christmas.”
Beyond clothing, Tassie Mums supply vital items like car seats, cots, and prams to families in crisis, including those experiencing homelessness, domestic violence, or leaving detention.
“We receive requests for aid from children in terribly sad and desperate situations every day,” Clair said.
“We have had child protection carrying out immediate removals whose first port of call is to visit Tassie Mums, midwives calling to requests car seats and cots so babies can be discharged from hospital, families with young children who are homeless and living in cars and caravans, premature babies being placed into child protection, a 12-year-old homeless child on their own needing material aid, children being dropped off with nothing to family members and parents not returning, supporting children with material aid when leaving detention, just to name a few.
“The demand for support continues to increase. Today, our team has 84 volunteers and three part-time staff and to date we have supported over 10 thousand children locally,” she added.
Working within a broader network of Australian organizations dedicated to childhood support, including Baby Give Back, Big Group Hug, and The Smith Family, the story of Tassie Mums exemplifies how compassion and community action can create lasting change - by providing essentials, advocating for reforms, and inspiring others, the organization continues to brighten the lives of Tasmania’s most vulnerable children, proving that even small acts of kindness foster hope, resilience, and a better future for all.
“Our hope for Australian children is to see an enormous reduction in childhood poverty, for no child to go without the basic everyday essentials for their health and wellbeing, for government to value children by seeing the need for a Federal Minister for Children and the implementation of a Child Poverty Act,” Sarah concluded.
How you can support Tassie Mums work:
For more information on Tassie Mums, go to: https://tassiemums.org/
