Over $35,000 of donations!
By Tony Stewart, Rainbow Beach DroughtRunners 0408767930
Rainbow Beach DroughtRunners are now in our sixth year of looking after the welfare of many farming families, whether it’s in drought, fire or helping those fallen on hard times..
Like all businesses, Covid shut us down as we couldn’t travel any distance for months to deliver goods, but we relied on Australia Post to send out vouchers.
The Kids Bush to the Beach was going to happen again with Schools from the Warwick area but that had to be cancelled way back in March due to Covid..
The year has ended well with another two ute and trailer loads of goods including Christmas presents to the School of Distant Ed in Longreach, that was distributed to those families still in drought.
Another $7000 in Visa and IGA vouchers also went out to Centa Care.(Mental Health). Also another $2000 this month has gone to the hard working Fencing For Fires Group who, like Blaze Aid, still have hundreds of KMS to renew since the January fires in Victoria and New South Wales.
Our year of voucher and cash donations so far comes to over $35,000 and with no admin or overhead costs it all gets directly to the beneficiary. Plus all the food hampers, so we have a lot of people to thank this month.
We must thank Jim and Margaret Snee, along with Marlene Owen and Bruce Devereaux for delivering this month to Longreach (21 trips there for me was enough for a while).
Thank you to Nestle Australia, The Reibel Family of TCBay for so many prawns, and Bill Neil for his wonderfully crafted wooden toys.
Also Gympie Big W and Rainbow Beach Pharmacy for present collections, Good Price Pharmacy, and Bernard Petroleum.
Presents from Bill and Patty Watts, Christine Crowe,Wal and Betty Freeman, Bev Yeoman, Merry Rigby and Adele Tauri.
We have just had another big donation from M Watts, also W Bailey, HT Stewart, G Eats, T Linke and J Anderson all from Victoria.
Many thanks again to Wayne Kerle for his bottle and can collection which he processes at Bay Auto Tin Can Bay. To all that donated in our IGA trolleys in Rainbow, Tin Can Bay and Drakes Gympie, along with all that donated to collection tins a big thankyou.
We will leave our tins out – hopefully over summer, rains will break the drought…
Lately I have had thank you notes from as far as Hughenden and they are so grateful for your help.
Thank you all.