February 16, 2015
The Wondai Hotel was packed on Friday night with South Burnett residents eager to help raise money to equip a new Wondai P-9 school library.
The old library was razed by fire in January, destroying thousands of library books, resources and the stored history of the school (and former small schools in the area).
The historical items can’t be replaced, and the school has been inundated with donations of books from all over Queensland.
What it really wants now is cash.
And that’s what Friday night’s Chinese feast at the Wondai Hotel set out to help achieve.
Much of the food cooked up on the night was donated by local businesses, to help cut down on overheads.
The 180 patrons paid $25 a head for an all-you-can-eat banquet accompanied by live entertainment, again donated by local performers.
Wondai Principal Ruth Miller shared a Powerpoint presentation of “the great library we once had”.
She said almost $100,000 had been spent on the library over the past few years and the benefits of this – plus the efforts of the schools’s great teachers – had been reflected in improved NAPLAN results.
“We became a community of readers,” she said.
She said the students had loved to read books in the “secret garden”, a quiet area with a pond, which was also destroyed in the fire.
Mrs Miller said she hoped the funds from the Wondai Hotel banquet could be put towards establishing a new “secret garden” at the new library when it is constructed.
Mrs Miller said she had been overwhelmed by the generosity of book donations – to the point, the school doesn’t need any more at the moment.
“People have travelled from all over the State with carloads of books, and most have been in very good condition,” she said.
Now the job of sorting them and cataloguing them would begin in the temporary library, located in a demountable shed.
“We are determined to be a strong community of readers forever,” Mrs Miller said.
CROW-FM announcer Shaz Birkett compered the evening while Wondai Hotel co-owner Jessica Beohm tried out a new skill … auctioneering.
And she wasn’t too bad, either, raising almost $4000 for the school.
Items auctioned ranged from bales of hay and chook pellets to bottles of wine, Wolves’ football guernseys and Swickers’ hams.
The top sale was $2400 for a fully installed reverse-cycle air conditioner donated by Wondai Electrical.
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A big thank you from Wondai P-9 to the sponsors, volunteers and/or donors of auction items, including: Alison Ramke, Andrew and Meredith Jackson (Yallakool), Big Al, Carmen Freeman, Cecil Hotel, Celebrations Wondai, Coca-Cola, Connollys Statewide Transport, CROW-FM, Deal’n, Extra Touch Designs and Hire Murgon, Guy Davis, Jelly Bead Wooroolin, Mad House Discounts Kingaroy, “Maria”, “Michael and Col”, Murgon Fruit Mart, Pedigreed Seeds, Prices Plus Kingaroy, Rachel and Matty Van Beelen, SB Vets, South Burnett Council, southburnett.com.au, South Burnett PCYC, Star Murgon, Swickers Kingaroy, Terry Jacobson, Top of the Town Butchers, Tranquillity & Soul, Tribe of Judah, “Tripper, Matt, Twiny and Roscoe”, Visual Image, Warana Hotel, Wayne’s World Murgon, Wondai Art Gallery, Wondai Electrical, Wondai Hotel, Wondai IGA, Wondai Junior Rugby League
