Bill Crews (minister)
William David Crews AM[1] (born 1944) is an Australian Christian minister of the Uniting Church. He is the minister of the Ashfield parish in Sydney's Inner West.
Biography
Bill Crews was born in England in 1944
In late 1969, he first visited the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross and ultimately became involved in voluntary programs, visiting the elderly, sick and shut-ins of the Woolloomooloo-Kings Cross area.
By 1971, he had decided to quit engineering and work full-time at the Wayside Chapel. Crews was a member of the team that created the first 24-hour crisis centre in Australia. By 1972 he was director of the crisis centre and directed all the social work programs of the Wayside Chapel until 1983.[3] During that time he established the first program in Australia to reunite adoptees and birth parents (Reunion Register), and the first program to assist parents who were at risk of abusing their children (Child Abuse Prevention Service). He also established the first modern youth refuge in Australia.[4]
In 1973 he was made a member of the New South Wales Drug and Alcohol Authority and was intimately involved in establishing drug rehabilitation, education and prevention programs throughout New South Wales. Together with
After leaving the Wayside Chapel, Crews went into the Uniting Church ministry and eventually became minister at the Uniting Church in the Sydney suburb of
From 1996 to 2014 Exodus (in collaboration with MULTILIT) operated a literacy program which offered free remedial reading tuition to disadvantaged primary school children, with tutorial centres located in Ashfield, Redfern, Coen, Queensland and Darwin, Northern Territory. The NSW State Government terminated funding to the program on 30 September 2014,[7] and the Ashfield and Redfern centres closed soon after, although The Bill Crews Trust continues to operate a literacy program for indigenous students in the Northern Territory.
Since 2002, Crews has hosted the radio program Sunday Night with Bill Crews on Sydney radio station
Awards and honours
Crews has been awarded an International Paul Harris Fellow by the
As part of the 2000 Summer Olympics, Crews ran a leg of the Olympic Torch Relay and the Paralympic Torch Relay. He also distributed hundreds of donated tickets to those who would otherwise not have had the financial means to partake in the Olympic experience.[citation needed]
In 2001, Crews was named Ashfield Citizen of the Year for his contribution to the local community. He received the William R. Tresise Fellowship Award from the Australian Lions Foundation in June 2001 – the highest honour the Foundation bestows for humanitarian services.[citation needed] In 2001, Crews also received an Alumni Award from the University of New South Wales.[citation needed]
Crews is a patron of Australians For Just Refugee Programs and chairman of Fair Go Australia – an anti-racism project sponsored by the NSW Government through the Community Relations Commission.[citation needed]
References
- ^ Government of Australia. 26 January 1999. Archivedfrom the original on 3 October 2019. Retrieved 22 December 2011.
- ^ "Crews, Bill | The Dictionary of Sydney". dictionaryofsydney.org. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
- ^ "Bill Crews | Harm Reduction Australia". www.harmreductionaustralia.org.au. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
- ^ "Bill Crews". 2GB. Retrieved 3 August 2008.
- ^ Thomsen, Simon (7 August 2017). "Rev. Bill Crews: Sydney's debate over homelessness has 'turned feral'". Business Insider Australia. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
- ^ "Reverend Bill Crews has put his unique stamp on the life of Sydney". Conversations with Richard Fidler. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
- ^ [1] "Exodus Foundation’s reading program on the chopping block after State Government cuts funding", Sean Thompson, Inner West Courier, 6 October 2014
- ^ "Dailytelegraph.com.au | Subscribe to The Daily Telegraph for exclusive stories".