Charities urge donations of Stay NSW vouchers

Charities are encouraging NSW residents to donate millions of dollars worth of unused Stay NSW vouchers before they end on October 9.

The vouchers can be used at hotels, motels and other accommodation providers that are part of the scheme.

There are about $74 million worth of Stay NSW vouchers that are unused across the state, according to Service NSW.

More than 2 million vouchers have been issued, but fewer than 700,000 have been redeemed.

One regional charity that could benefit is RuffTRACK, which teaches at-risk youth how to train working dogs from Riverstone in Sydney's west.

Intake officer manager Tara Palffy said the work involved going to regional and interstate competitions and events.

"What we do is to teach all those different life skills, as well as with their dogs, and teach them other skills in areas to go out and move into employment," Ms Palffy said.

She said that donations of Stay NSW vouchers would help with the cost of accommodation for the young people in their program when they travel.

They've got a nice, safe place to sleep and to be able to commit to the show, Ms Palffy said.

Mark Ross wanted to help victims of flooding in Ballina on the state's North Coast.

Mr Ross, who works as a tiler, said he had collected around 100 vouchers so far and was passing on donated vouchers to a hotel to provide discounted rooms for flood victims.

I wasn't flood-affected myself, but a lot of my friends were and I saw how devastating it was for them, Mr Ross said.

Ross was not a part of a registered charity but gathered donations for bushfire victims and collected Dine and Discover vouchers to help families affected by flooding.

There were a lot of people who donated to me and they weren't donating to some other organisations because of the way things had been run before, Mr Ross said.

It takes one person to put their hand up and then people want to help. I'm just that one person. Service NSW is cold water about the idea of giving vouchers.

Service NSW says the vouchers are not transferable and can only be used by the person the voucher is issued to.

A spokeswoman for Service NSW said they cannot be exchanged for cash or gift vouchers if they are used as a gift or donation to a registered business or charity.

Charities say it's possible to share by sending a screenshot of the QR code with a copy of the voucher code.

Tara Palffy, of RuffTRACK said donated vouchers could go a long way in helping finance activities for their charity.

Ms Palffy said that we are a charity organisation, so we rely heavily on donations from the community.