Huge response for call to help

SEVEN hours was all it took.

At 10am Kiara Porra put out a call for non-perishable food, hygiene items and stock feed for the bushfire relief effort underway in East Gippsland.

By 5pm she was coordinating three cars, two trucks and four semi-trailers of supplies headed for Bairnsdale.

“It’s been overwhelming,” Ms Porra said. “We’re a community that wants to come together and everyone just wants to help. It’s the Australian way.

Using the PRDnationwide Ballarat office on Lydiard Street South as a staging point, staff members and volunteers took in tons of food, water and other iteams for Gippsland Farmer Relief.

Once the supplies make it to the state’s east they’ll be made into hampers for people affected or displaced by the fires that stretched from the edge of Bairnsdale to the border.

After putting the call for help out on social media on Thursday morning, 3BA and PowerFM along with businesses and people across the region shared the message.

“I posted it on Facebook originally then contacted some larger businesses in Ballarat,” Ms Porra said. “It’s literally just grown from there.”

For Ms Porria, the desire to help in this way came from her personal circumstances.

While some relief agencies are calling for cash donations, Ms Porria said that not everyone has money to give, but still want to help those affected by the crisis in East Gippsland.

“Myself, I’m a bit strapped for cash at the moment, we’re renovating,” she said. “We weren’t sure how we could give back, so this was our best option to give people things.

“Gippsland Farmer Relief were looking for these items so they could make hampers and I thought other people would be in the same boat as us, and this is what it’s turned into.”