February 19, 2013
Can you spare a day or two to help BlazeAid fix fences or maybe supply meals to the volunteers?
BlazeAid is a volunteer group that began in Victoria after the Black Saturday fires in 2009.
They’ve spent the past three years helping mend fences caused by natural disasters.
BlazeAid helped out in the South Burnett after the 2011 floods and have been called back to lend a hand again after this year’s disastrous floods.
They’ve set up in Murgon and Doreen Campos, from the Salvation Army, is running the kitchen to make sure they’re all well fed.
Doreen was the guest speaker at a Quota International function on Monday evening.
The Quota clubs of Murgon and Kingaroy joined together to celebrate the 94th birthday of the international service club with a dinner at the Tingoora Hotel.
Doreen said local service clubs, church groups and other organisations had responded generously to her call to assist with preparing the meals for the BlazeAid volunteers.
Already she has 18 days of menus prepared with no repeats, and each of the groups has said they will do it again.
However the reality is the BlazeAid volunteers could be working in the region for months, and there were also morning and afternoon teas, and lunch packs, to be prepared.
In 2011, BlazeAid assisted 35 South Burnett properties and completed 583 days of work with 109 registered volunteers.
This time around, the need could be even greater.
The group is helping farmers located within a 100km radius of Murgon to replace the hundreds of kilometres of fencing damaged or washed away during the Australia Day weekend floods.
They’ve been joined in their task by the team from Boots’n’Bulldust from Nanango, but Doreen says more local helpers are required.
“We desperately need workers who will go out,” Doreen said.
“We will get the grey nomads – 30 sites are ready in the Murgon Caravan Park – but we need local people in the South Burnett to offer a day or even hours,” she said.
“They need to be relatively able-bodied to go out and work on the properties.”
Doreen said people who were interested in volunteering with BlazeAid should contact Adrian at the South Burnett Regional Council on (07) 4189-9104.
If you would like to help with meals, phone Doreen on (07) 4168-1916. Meals can also be donated at Clifton Motors in Murgon.
