By Gabriella Payne
What started out as one woman’s little idea to lend a helping hand to those impacted by last week’s wild weather has quickly snowballed into an amazing community relief campaign, with organisations and community members coming together from across the Cardinia Shire to help those in need.
The ‘all hands on deck’ Victorian flood relief campaign came about last week thanks to a kind-hearted Longwarry mum, Shauna Evans, who reached out to the Pakenham SES asking what she could do to help those impacted by both the floods in Gippsland and the storm damage in the hills.
“I saw how quickly things were happening and how quickly people were being impacted and I figured if I can help someone out and make their day, I suppose give them something positive out of a negative situation, then that’s better than doing nothing,” Ms Evans said.
“People are just trying to get back up on their feet [after Covid] and they’ve been knocked back down again, and yeah it just started with a small ambition and it’s just gotten bigger and bigger and evolved, which is just amazing.”
Shayne Honey from the Pakenham SES thought Ms Evans’ idea was a brilliant one, and they quickly went to work setting up a number of food collection stations across the shire, at both the Longwarry Football Club and the Officer Football Club.
The first collection was held in Longwarry on Wednesday 16 June and another was held at the Officer Football Club on Friday 18 June, with the final collections taking place on Tuesday 22 June at both clubs before all the supplies gathered will be sent off to help those in either flood or storm affected areas.
“One big load is going up to the Dandenong Ranges and Emerald/ Cockatoo way and the other one is going down to the Gippsland area that’s been impacted by flooding, including Traralgon, Morwell and Sale,” Ms Evans explained.
Mr Honey said that it was “great to get everyone onboard” with Ms Evans’ idea and he thanked the community for all the donations that had been collected so far.
“It’s just great that it’s come about from Shauna asking a simple question and we’ve been able to pull it all together at this end using different community connections to actually get the boxes of stuff coming in,” Mr Honey said.
Both Mr Honey and Ms Evans wanted to thank the support of the Longwarry Football Club, the Officer Football Club, the Indian Australian Community Cooperative, the Pakenham SES and of course all the volunteers and community members who had helped get this show on the road.
“If we can get a smile on their faces or a little stress off their shoulders with all the stress that they’d be going through at the moment, then that’s better than nothing,” Ms Evans said.
