The Sunshine Home, run by the Sunshine Association, opened in Howrah in 1951. It provided holidays of up to three weeks to children from poor or isolated homes. The Home closed in 1980.
The Sunshine Home opened in Howrah, a suburb of Hobart, on 11 August 1951.
The Home was the idea of Margaret Reid, an infant school headmistress, and Dora Baudinet, a school nurse. They wished to establish a holiday home like the ones they had visited in New Zealand. In 1937, they formed the Sunshine Association to raise funds for the Sunshine Home. Baudinet became the driving force. As organising secretary of the Association, she was an effective fundraiser and lobbyist. Baudinet also donated 10.5 acres of the beachfront property on which the Association built the Home.
By 1943, the Association had plans for the Home but wartime shortages and restrictions delayed its construction.
A panel of two schoolteachers, one employee from the Public Health Department, and a member of the Sunshine Association chose children for the home.
According to the Mercury, 260 children had a holiday at the home during its first year. Over its lifetime, the Home gave an average of 600 children a year a holiday.
The children received dental and medical care from the state government.
The parents did not pay fees. The home managed financially through public donations and government support. Rising costs forced it to close for the first time in 1976. When the Lions Club took over the Sunshine Association in 1976, they managed to support the Sunshine Home for three years but it finally closed in 1980. In 1985, with the encouragement of the Lions Club, the Sunshine Association sold the property to Clarence Council which redeveloped it into the Howrah Sunshine Recreation Centre. It opened in 1988.
In 2013 the Sunshine Association reported that it did not have any records of the Sunshine Home.
Sources used to compile this entry: 'Death of Sister Baudinet; fine record of service', The Mercury, 20 December 1945, p. 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26151189; 'First children to enter Sunshine Home soon', The article is illustrated., 8 August 1951, p. 9, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/27024687; 'Hundreds at Opening of Sunshine Home', Mercury, The article includes a photograph of Dora Baudinet., 13 August 1951, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page1913243; 'Sunshine Home gave 260 children a holiday', The Mercury, 30 October 1952, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page1922560; 'Sunshine Home Success', Mercury, 16 August 1952, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52909755; Ombudsman Tasmania, Review of claims of abuse from adults in state care as children - Final Report - Phase 2, June 2006. Also available at https://stors.tas.gov.au/au-7-0057-00034; Rand, A, 'Baudinet, Dora Isabel (1883-1945)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography - Online Edition, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, Canberra, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/baudinet-dora-isabel-9455/text16629; 'Sunshine Association of Tasmania brochure', in Lions District 201 T1 Website, Lions Tasmania, https://lionstasmania.org/files/documents/e0bdffd9-18bd-4dec-a024-93e8ca7601a6.pdf.
Prepared by: Caroline Evans
Created: 13 December 2011, Last modified: 18 March 2015
Last updated: 4 August 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/tas/biogs/TE00310b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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