Reverend Bill Crews

Broadcaster and Social and Community Entrepreneur

Rev. Bill Crews biography

Rev. William David Crews was born in England in 1944 and educated in Australia. He studied Electrical Engineering at the University of N.S.W. under scholarship provided by AWA. He then worked with AWA in microelectronic research studying the properties of silicon until 1971. During his time he built the first machine to grow ultra pure single crystal silicon in Australia.

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. Bill 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. 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.

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.

In 1978 he and the Rev. Ted Noffs created the first Life Education Centre. Life Education Centres are now all over Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, New Zealand, England and America.

In 1983 he left the Wayside Chapel to study Theology at the Uniting Church's United Theological College and graduated Bth in 1986. In 1986 he was ordained as minister of the Ashfield Uniting Church. At Ashfield he created the Exodus Foundation to assist homeless and abandoned youth, and other people in need.

Today the Exodus Foundation runs a "free restaurant" serving up to 400 meals to the needy every day. The Foundation also operates a Tutorial Centre to educate children who have fallen through the cracks in the mainstream education system. It runs a free dental and medical clinic, provides help and support services such as social workers, chaplaincy, counselling, and food parcel assistance.

Rev. Crews has been awarded The Rotary Foundation International Award "Paul Harris Fellow". He has been voted Father of the Year and Humanitarian of the Year (1992). In February 1998 Rev. Crews was included in the National Trust's 100 "National Living Treasures". In 1999 Rev. Crews was awarded an Order of Australia (AM) for his services to the disadvantaged and his work with homeless youth.

As part of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Bill 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.

Rev. Bill Crews’s achievements demonstrate his capacity to lead and positively influence the community in a myriad of tangible ways.

In 2001 Bill 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. In 2001 Rev. Crews also received an Alumni Award from the University of New South Wales.

Rev. Crews is a Patron of Australians For Just Refugee Programs, and Chairman of Fair Go Australia – an anti-racism project sponsored by the N.S.W. Government through the Department of Community Relations Commission.

Since August 2002 Rev. Crews has broadcast his Sunday Night Crews radio program on Sydney station 2GB-873AM. The program has consistently been the highest rating Sunday night radio show in the Sydney market, with an audience of 100,000 listeners.

Websites

Bill Crews

2GB

Profiles

2GB

Social and Community Entrepreneurs

Radio

Media Man Australia publicly congratulates Bill Crews on his awesome social and community endeavors