At the outset fundraising may seem simple but four Border youths found it was not without its challenges.
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Erin McCallum, Kelsey Freeman, Dan Kipping and Jennifer Sartor handed over a hefty cheque to charity FoodShare as part of their assessment for the Wodonga Council youth leadership program on Monday.
They had six weeks to plan their fundraising effort and over three days raised an impressive $1240.
Ms McCallum said they tin-rattled on streets, organised a raffle at the Bended Elbow and staged a free dress day at Melrose Primary School.
She enjoyed the challenge of working with other people in a team.
“There are so many different personality traits,” she said. “But we thought we did really well, we didn’t really have any conflict – any conflict that we did have we worked through it.”
Ms Freeman echoed this sentiment.
“It’s really good to reach this goal,” she said.
“Our hard work has paid off, and we’ve been able to raise a considerable amount to go to FoodShare, which is local, which is really awesome.”
FoodShare’s primary objective is to rescue would-be wasted food from retailers, wholesalers and distributors who would otherwise throw it out due to its unsaleable condition.
It is then handed out to the Border’s needy.
Manager Peter Matthews said he was chuffed to receive the money.
“We buy food staples which we can’t get donated from anywhere else,” he said.
“We say to anyone who’s got food that they don’t want to give it to us and we’ll sort it, and if it’s usable we’ll make it available to all our agencies and schools.
“There are now over 140 who get food variously over the year from us.
“But sometimes we don’t get our staples such as pasta, rice, flour, sugar and so on.
Ms Freeman said the fundraising process was instructive in how to work co-operatively with others.
“We learnt a lot of other things on the way in planning the project and how we’d fundraise,” she said.
“It was quite difficult, but we pulled together as a team. We’re still learning about each other as well.
“We’re glad this money is going to a local cause which is going to help people in the community. We chose it because it does help people in need, even down to people at La Trobe.”
