Winery hosts inaugural local fundraiser for children's charity

St Anne’s Winery in Myrniong will host a major pre-Mother’s Day lunch next week, with proceeds to go to baby and children’s charity Our Village.

The event is the first of its kind outside Melbourne, where Our Village’s major fundraiser each year is its own Mother’s Day lunch (this year’s was held last Friday).

The local iteration is scheduled for Friday 8 May from noon to 4pm and will feature a three-course meal, wines, live music, dancing and a yet-to-be-announced guest speaker.

Moorabool Shire councillor Ally Munari will act as MC for the day.

Volunteers are the engine room of Our Village. Photo: Supplied.

The Pre-Mother’s Day Charity Lunch, as it is being called, stems from an idea of Graze-Ballan’s Jill Harrington, her daughter Kelly and Ruby Glew (Studio Ballan), all of whom have been regular participants in the city event.

“The three of us have trekked into Melbourne annually for many years now, and this year we decided to bring it to the west and run our own event here,” Harrington said.

“We decided to have a crack at doing something a bit bigger for them rather than just buying a table.”

When she spoke to The Moorabool News, Harrington said about 60 tickets had been sold, and the “perfect number” would be 80.

She said an added incentive for Ballarat people wanting to attend was that a shuttle bus would run from the Ballan train station to the venue.

The charity helps families and their babies and children with goods such as clothing, cots, car seats and more. Photo: Supplied.

“The encouragement is for people to come from Ballarat because it’s nice and easy to hop on the train and the shuttle bus will take them out to St Anne’s Winery,” she said.

“We’ve got quite a few doing that already, and some coming in from Bacchus Marsh.

“We’ve even got a table of 10 coming from Melbourne as well.”

Tickets are $155 each and can be bought at trybooking.com/events/landing/1518655

Our Village was created out of an amalgamation of Ballarat-based Eureka Mums, Melbourne’s St Kilda Mums, and Geelong Mums, all of which gathered and distributed baby and child essentials such as car seats, high chairs, cots, change tables, and clothing.

The organisation now helps more than 20,000 babies and children around the state every year.

According to Our Village, it helped 681 children and 308 families in the City of Ballarat and Moorabool Shire last year. It distributed 2,561 items valued at $279,738.