Generosity shines through

By Lachlan Ellis

Dreary weather on Good Friday hasn’t stopped the Moorabool community digging deep, with more than $60,000 raised locally for the 2023 Good Friday Appeal.

The Bacchus Marsh Lions Club and Ballan Group of Fire Brigades were hard at work once again this year rattling tins, joined by volunteers eager to support the fantastic cause.

The Bacchus Marsh Lions Club raised a whopping $34,339 – its highest Good Friday Appeal Tally ever, beating the previous record of $33,437 raised in 2019.

The Club’s fundraising co-ordinator, David Atterbury, said he was over the moon with the total raised, and thanked volunteers and generous locals who donated.

“We’re very grateful for all the generous donors. A lot of people are under a lot of financial pressure, but we still seem to raise the money, so it’s all good signs. Something we started this year was approaching some of the businesses in town, we only did it with four people and we got four donations,” Mr Atterbury told the Moorabool News.

“So, if we can do more calls next year, it’s got to be successful. We got $2,070 from our new QR code as well, it’s certainly $1,500 we wouldn’t have got before as we got a major donation from one of our members. And we had a great turnout for volunteers – we didn’t turn people away, but people we normally have out shaking tins, we had to get them inside counting cash from the tins instead this year.”

The Ballan Group of Fire Brigades (Ballan, Gordon, and Greendale) raised over $20,000, with a generous donation from Steptoes Op Shop contributing $5,000 to the tally.

Co-ordinator for the Ballan Group of Fire Brigades’ Good Friday Appeal fundraising, Ian Ireland, said it was something of a surprise how much people donated in these tough times – but people always seemed to support The Royal Children’s Hospital no matter what.

“It went extremely well with the inclement conditions we had, we’d like to thank everyone that contributed. We received $19,777.42 from the collection on Friday, and another $4,130 in donations via phone. So that brought us to around $23,000,” Mr Ireland said.

“We had a couple of community members help us collect and that was wonderful, we were grateful for their support. We’re certainly surprised by the generosity in these times. One of the people who helped out has used the Hospital, and it was her way of giving something back.

“I think there’s a lot of people in the community that use our world-renowned facility, and people respect it and just give willingly. It’s tremendous to think each year The Royal Children’s Hospital can get that little bit more.”