Helping the helpers: Supporting A Better Life for Foster Kids

5 December 2025

Our community partner, A Better Life for Foster Kids, has a mission that resonates with us: that every child feels safe, supported and valued. Often when children are taken into out-of-home care, they have nothing but the clothes on their back, which is where the charity and its founder Heather Baird step in.

A Better Life for Foster Kids provides crisis cases – suitcases filled with essentials such as clothing, toiletries, and comfort items – so carers can focus on the child’s emotional wellbeing rather than spending time finding clothes that fit them.

As well as providing this service, and others which help foster carers advocate for children, A Better Life for Foster Kids plays an important role at Christmas, helping carers manage the financial impact which comes with caring for children. They provide Christmas gifts for the foster children and any of the carer’s own children – sometimes up to eight kids per family.

Each child receives three presents, making sure they have something that’s just for them to open and reminding them they’re not forgotten at a time of year which can be a painful reminder of everything they’ve lost. Already this year, more than 6000 gifts have been sent to 741 families.

A smiling blonde woman holding a colourful toy wrapped in gift wrapping. She stands in front of shelves filled with boxed toys and dolls.

Wrapping and posting all these gifts is an enormous task for the small charity, which is where we got involved. Because for us, support isn’t only about dollars. Sometimes, it’s about rolling up our sleeves.

So, we lent a helping hand to organise and wrap hundreds of gifts. It’s a simple gesture, but one that reminds us that every child deserves to feel special.

As Heather says, “Without all this support, we wouldn’t be able to reach as many children as we do. It shows that somebody out there believes in what we’re doing and that spurs you on every day of the week!”

This isn’t the first time we’ve pitched in to help A Better Life for Foster Kids with in-kind support. Over the past few years:

Our Reliability and Planning team have spent three volunteer days renovating the charity's Sale headquarters
Teams from our Production and Business Support groups have helped organise and move items between premises
Our organisation helped with the clean up when the shop’s front window was ram raided earlier this year, and when the charity's premises was flooded in 2021

We’re proud to stand alongside this incredible volunteer group. Their work is a powerful reminder of what community is all about. For us, time time we give is just as important as financial support.

Acknowledgement of Country

Loy Yang B acknowledges the Gunaikurnai People, the Traditional Custodians of the land where we live and work. We acknowledge the continuing connections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples to Country and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Loy Yang B Power Station
Bartons Lane, Traralgon, Victoria, Australia
Telephone (03) 5177 2000

LYB Operations & Maintenance Pty Ltd
ABN 66 055 563 696