Generosity in tough times

PICTURE a big pallet of non-perishable food and seven hundred dollars’ worth of toys on the back of a long truck.

This is what MaxiTRANS Ballarat’s office team and 140 members of the factory’s social club gave to the severely drought effected town of Trundle in central New South Wales, and its local Primary School at Christmas.

Chris Liston, continuous improvement supervisor at MaxiTRANS Ballarat, and social club chair said the town needed “desperate help.”

The factory’s donations were quickly combined with others, like pallets of water, from the broader national MaxiTRANS family and loaded onto a 22-pallet trailer just in time for 25 December.

“We only had a week to get together,” he said. “Our New South Wales branch had a trailer going up at four o’clock on the Monday the week before Christmas.”

Originally a corporate initiative of MaxiTRANS NSW’s sales department, Mr Liston said it’s likely to become an ongoing partnership throughout the drought, especially on the approach to Easter.

The appeal is an example to him of the ways in which people just pull together when anyone is experiencing trouble “across the board.

“MaxiTRANS workers help a lot of charities. When the chips are down people help a lot of other people, even though they’re in jeopardy of how our market’s going,” he said.

“There’s a lot of good people who are pretty generous, even when times are tough here.”

MaxiTRANS Ballarat also recently fundraised to Buy Another Bale, to support Movember, and the 3BA Christmas Appeal.