Rainbow Beach has a cleaning bench
Coastguard Purser, Dianne Pryor, commissions the new collection box at Gardiner Fishing with Drew Gardiner – the Coastguard are grateful to all business houses who provide raffle prizes, services free or discounted, or have donation boxes on their counters like this one
Rainbow Beach has a cleaning bench
The cleaning bench at Gardiner Fisheries is a massive hit. Said Drew Gardiner, “We get LOTS of people using it every week. Cleaning facilities have been needed here in Rainbow for many, many years, however seem to get overlooked.
“Although it would be great to have a council-provided facility, the issue of fish waste/ dumping is a major one. Being situated at our store enables us to deal with the fish waste at no ongoing cost to the local government.”
The business is also a designated drop-off point for Fisheries research. They collect species of interest, frames, and blast freeze, ready for collection by Queensland Fisheries for research purposes.
“It’s an awesome addition and draw card for our store and it’s one way we can help (through donations for use of the facility) provide funding to the local Rainbow Fishing Club and Tin Can Bay Coastguard.”
Tin Can Bay Coastguard said, “We are pleased to welcome Gardiner Fishing to our list of supporters. Our collection box is at their fantastic fish cleaning table which is able to be used by anyone in the area, with a request to make a small donation to the Coast Guard.”
Coastguard drives fundraising
The threat of a continued Covid closure hung over the whole Cooloola Coast until the last minute. Plans were made, but it wasn’t until two days before Easter that we got the news we were hoping for, that it was all systems go!
Having missed out on our roadside collection in 2020, we were hopeful that people would come visit our area and support our crews dressed in fluro vests and armed on the roadside with buckets.
In addition, we also had plans to ride the Mantaray Barges from Inskip Point to Fraser Island to boost our holiday fundraising.
We were pleased to find so many kind people, both locals and visitors, donating generously and being so complimentary about the need to keep us in the community. Several people had even been rescued by us in the past, or had known others who had needed to call on us.
So, a big thank you to all who helped us, our volunteers, the generous folk who donated, those who buy raffle tickets, and to Mantaray Barges who provide such a wonderful service getting people across to Fraser and back.
