December 14, 2020
The Red Earth Community Foundation officially launched a “Gifts In Memory” donation program at its AGM lunch held in Kingaroy on Monday.
And the program also received its first donation … from Simon Whittle, a director of Australian Community Philanthropy, the umbrella organisation for Australia’s community foundations.
Simon, who was a guest speaker at the AGM, made the bequest in memory of his grandparents, Horace and Grace Lindley who formerly owned ‘Jingeri’ at Proston.
The idea of the “Gifts In Memory” program is to create a special scheme where money can be donated to the philanthropic organisation to honour a loved one who has died.
Simon is also a director of the Buderim Foundation – a similar organisation to Red Earth – which runs a successful Gifts In Memory program.
Donations can be any amount, but so far have averaged $500, Simon said.
In return, volunteers work with the donating families to develop an obituary of the deceased which is then featured on the Buderim Foundation website.
Also launched at the Red Earth AGM was an Ambassador program designed to “spread the word” about Red Earth as far as possible.
This program will connect the founding members of the organisation, alumni of the Red Earth Community Leadership Program and other partners and supporters.
Red Earth chair Georgie Somerset reflected on the year that had been and the core values of Red Earth, which dated back to founding member Karen Seiler’s original “100-year vision for her grandchildren’s grandchildren”.
The group managed to hold its seventh Community Leadership Program just before the COVID-19 restrictions came into force.
It had then moved to Zoom to partner the Burnett Inland Economic Development Organisation (BIEDO) in “conversations” during the pandemic.
She said Red Earth was now working on a memo of understanding with BIEDO which will see the two organisations working together even more.
“The Red Earth Conversation Series we hosted online with BIEDO opened up so many more conversations and threads for us all – building upon the strengths we have in the Inland Burnett and beyond,” Georgie said.
“While we had guests join us, our local panellists led much of the discussion and we will continue these themes in the future.”
The successful applicants for the 2021 Red Earth Community Leadership Program, to be held at the Bunya Mountains, were announced at the AGM.
Director John Carey said the 22 people – a mix of applicants from the South and North Burnett regions – had been selected from 28 applicants and most were self-funded.
