How Charity Sunday works: for every comment made on this blog post, I will donate money to a charity found in this article. The same promise is made for every blog site listed in the group–click the link at the bottom of this post to see the list of participants and read/comment on any of them to see a donation go to that blogger’s charity. We’re all different! Thanks for your help and your participation!
Note: I posted this first on Friday, December 20 because I couldn’t wait to say something. Please consider this an early Charity Sunday!
Volunteer: a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.
Whether they volunteer with world-wide organisations such as Doctors Without Borders, environmental conservation programs, caring for refuges, wildlife conservation, local welfare groups and mums preparing lunches at the school canteen, we cannot put a price on their contributions to our communities. We thank our military, and now I’d like to thank our volunteers, also.
Never has that one word been as important as it is now in Australia.
This week we said thank you and farewell to the New Zealand firefighters and welcomed teams from Canada and the United States. These wonderful people willingly travelled thousands of miles to join our firefighters battling massive blazes in New South Wales and Queensland. Approximately 1,618,700 hectares, or 4 million acres (give or take an acre) have been affected and more than 1,000 homes across NSW and Queensland have been destroyed. We’ll never know how many homes and lives were saved by the courageous dedicated fireys facing these massive walls of flames. In broad terms, each state’s Rural Fires Service is the volunteer arms of the Fire and Emergency Services. New South Wales Rural Fire Service is the largest volunteer fire service in the world, and right now they, and our interstate fireys are stretched to the limit by the enormity of this disaster. So, thanks again to our Kiwi mates and the Americans and Canadians for giving us their time and invaluable help.
However, these men and women couldn’t keep going without the back-up Fire Service volunteers, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, the Country Women’s Association, St Vincent de Paul, and Lifeline, to name a few. In good times and in bad times, they are always here when we need them for financial help, food, clothing, household goods, emergency accommodation and trauma counselling. In every city and town, volunteers run Opportunity Shops (Thrift stores) selling second-hand goods for charities. One small Op Shop in Tuncurry, on the NSW coast, supports the local disabled children as well as the fire brigade, the rescue helicopter, the Royal Flying Doctor Service and other community services. This year they also donated $12,000 to Rural Aid to help drought-stricken farmers and water transport to country towns running dry. Multiply this by the countless donations and services provided by volunteers around the world and we must ask ourselves ‘where would we be without them?’
Volunteers from WIRES (Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service) and other similar groups have been facing these fires to rescue our unique wildlife. Sadly, many of these defenceless animals have perished but a lot are now receiving treatment and care, often in volunteers’ homes. Bear the Dog, a canine volunteer, is doing his best to find and rescue burned and injured koalas.
So, to all volunteers, the words ‘thank you’ are very inadequate. Indeed, we’d be lost without you.
Before I close, I want to share this heartwarming news item from Queensland.
Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a wonderful, safe new year. And… Please send rain!!
[Note: Jan wanted to share this post with us because her country is burning all around her. She is not asking you to contribute anything. However, should you wish to donate–whether to support the firefighters, to help groups who are helping those who have been left homeless, or to support wildlife rescue–I (Dee) ask that you please see the links in this article. And thank you! –Dee]
Jan Selbourne
Lies of Gold: SILVER medal for Best Historical Book of 2019!
The Proposition
Perilous Love
Behind the Clouds
Mystic Desire
I hope you will visit the other bloggers joining today’s Charity Sunday blog hop. You’ll find links to their posts here.
Thank you Dee for posting this tribute on Charity Sunday.
Thank you Nomads for the inspiring words you write & the genuine posts sent out to all the firies.
I am safe but our country is on fire 7 would be so easy to be lulled into a sense of I am okay mate
In these times we stick together, support each other through flood & fire & don’t waste money on a holiday give it to those who are suffering
Thinking of all of you facing this mess, Frances, and praying for your country!
Thank you Fran.
My heart goes out to each and everyone suffering these fires. I came to tears while reading this and will keep you in my prayers!
Thanks for commenting, Carol!
Thank you Carol
Thanks for the heartfelt post and recognition of the valuable services the firefighters provide. As I sit at home in pouring rain, I realize how lucky we are and wish there was a way to share some of our rain.
Cheryl, I so agree! If there were a way to box it up, it would be a great thing.
I wish you could send it down this way Cheryl. Thanks for your nice thoughts.
My thoughts and prayers are with the volunteers and all affected by the disaster. xxxx
Thank you Alice.
So many brave and caring people in the world. You have my prayers for rain.
Thank you very much Suzanne
Dear Jan and Dee,
Thank you so much for this heartfelt article.
I have many author friends who are from Australia. That brings the horror of these wildfires much closer. But we’re fortunate to have people who give so much of themselves to ease the impacts.
I hope you have a happy holiday. Stay safe, Jan!
Thanks so much Lisabet
Sending prayers.
Thank you very much Lisabet.
Thank you Gibby.
Dee,
This was a wonderful choice. They are all such brave heros.
Callie
Thank you Callie.
Mate, thank you for joining with this Charity Sunday. This one is close to home for me — I’m a Queenslander — and while I’m not (so far) directly impacted, I see friends, family, communities all around me, and around Australia who are.
Hi Banana Bender…
Same here, not directly impacted but friends have been. My heart goes out to the families facing this devastation and its not over yet.
As always, we make sure our mates are ok and we pick up and start again.
This post too brought me to tears.
Praying for the firefighters, the volunteers, for everyone impacted by the fires, human and animal alike, and praying for rain.
Thank you for your prayers Kimmie
So much has been happening recently that the world would be struggling a lot more if not for those who dedicate their time and energy to helping those around them.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts via this blog post. They deserve recognition for all they do.
Thank you Patricia, and a very happy Christmas to you and your family.
Volunteers are the back bone to many an organisation, the unsung human action behind disasters on the front line, no matter whether they are planting tree’s, picking up plastic from our oceans, attending accidents or providing food/drink for the volunteers, waving placards for human rights or seeing that earth needs help, animals and people needing help. Fire fighting is an extremely dangerous activity, if you have never done it you cant imagine it, but believe me these folk are truly heroic, and I humbly thank them.
Dy, thanks so much for your comment!
So well said, Dy