Drought Relief Update

 

 

 

West Gosford Rotary recently suggested an idea to our Central Coast Rotary Drought Relief Committee to raise funds to buy 50 bales of hay and deliver them to a nearby farming community, working with a local Rotary Club in a country area of NSW. Our Committee supported the idea and promoted it to Central Coast Rotary Clubs’, most of whom supported the project and contributed funds towards it & between all our Clubs we raised $12,500 and purchased 50 bales of hay (approx. 325 kg per bale).

 

The Merriwa area was chosen as it is badly drought affected and not far from the Central Coast. Tony Sullens from Mangrove Produce supplied the hay at a very good price and was also our Truck driver and was happy to drive as far as the Hunter Valley at no additional cost for delivery of the hay.

 

The hay was delivered to Merriwa on Friday 5 October with the local Merriwa Rotary Club being involved in the distribution of the hay to needy farmers.

 

Some Central Coast Rotarians also travelled up to Merriwa along with the hay truck where we met Mark Whales (President Merriwa Rotary) and travelled out to a nearby farm where the hay & other items were offloaded for storage & distribution. President Mark explained that the hay was going to be split between 5 different farms in that area.    

 

Even though we delivered 50 bales of Hay weighing approx. 325kg each - a total of around 16,000kg, that is only enough hay to feed about 150 cows for 1 week.

 

As the hay was being split between 5 different farms, each farmer would get 10 bales each - enough hay to feed about 30 cows for 1 week ONLY.

 

When you consider that one of the farmers there had 16,000 acres & would probably run over 1000 cows, there is not much hay to share between cows & the costs to feed all their cows must be enormous. 

 

One young farmer there said to me "it wasn’t just the delivery of hay that they appreciated, it was also a great morale booster to them & showed that people really did care about their situation ".

 

 

Foodbank Hampers - apart from the hay we also had hampers donated and supplied by Foodbank (which is the largest hunger relief organisation in Australia). These were also delivered on the Hay truck and consisted of 6 Pallets of both Food & Personal hampers (about 180 food hampers & about 160 Personal/Household items hampers).  

 

The President of Merriwa Rotary (Mark Whales) said these will be distributed across the community because apart from farmers there are many others in the local community doing it tough.

 

Breakers Golf Club cheque - we also presented a Cheque for $2000 to Merriwa Rotary Club. This money was raised by Breakers Golf Pro Shop charging competition golfers an extra $2 per round of golf over last few months to assist farmers in a drought affected area & they agreed our Central Coast Rotary “Hay Run” project in Merriwa was a worthy project to support. This money will be used to buy IGA food vouchers or possibly vouchers at the local Produce store or similar, to assist farmers and others in the local community.

 

Woy Woy Rotary Club cheque - Some Central Coast Rotarians stayed overnight and met with Merriwa Rotary Club that night to socialise and have dinner with them, where Jane Mote (Woy Woy Rotary President) presented a cheque for $750 from Woy Woy Rotary to Merriwa Rotary which also will be used for IGA food vouchers or similar.

 

 

Thank you to all of you that attended the recent Trivia Night held at Breakers County Club on Thursday 20 September; the night was a great success and a complete sell-out with 177 people attending; with members from most local Rotary Clubs as well as Golfers from Breakers Golf Club and local Central Coast people also in attendance

 

Funds raised on the night were just over $5672 which was a fantastic effort and it was a great night which everyone appeared to enjoy and apart from Trivia, we also had a local singer & Bush poet donate their time to entertain the audience between trivia rounds.

Our Drought Relief Committee are presently looking at ideas where these funds can be distributed and are seeking feedback and ideas from Central Coast Rotary Clubs. Based on current feedback we think it will go to a Farming community via a local Rotary Club, somewhere in NSW.