By KATH GANNAWAY
A GROUP of Healesville people has embraced the concept that community is at the heart of finding solutions when gaps open up in ‘the system’.
The gap that prompted Healesville resident Patrick Wolfe to look for a way to help single mum Sally Gales and her daughters Edie and Scarlett is the financial spiral many families find themselves in when sickness strikes.
Edie, 9, is undergoing a punishing regime of regular, sustained chemotherapy for a rare brain tumour at the Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. It means that until at least February next year, Edie and her mum are at the hospital for three or four days at a time. Typically, they spend two weeks out of three, sometimes more, at the hospital.
Patrick gathered some friends and enlisted the help of Sean O’Brien at Barrique Wine Store and Iggy Amrein at Wombat’s Chai café in Healesville to launch ‘Healesville For The Gales’ – an organic, no-red-tape fund aimed at providing Sally and the girls with a regular income.
They are inviting people – families, businesses, individuals – to pledge $10 a week until Edie finishes her treatment.
“Sally has persevered with extraordinary courage and grace, but it’s an almost impossible task,” Patrick said.
“She has the constant heartache of seeing her younger daughter have to spend so much time away from home without Edie or herself, and to cap it all off, she can’t work.
“Her mortgage is mounting up daily, as are other debts and despite the incredibly brave face that she manages to put on, Sally’s situation is literally desperate,” he said.
It’s also hard for Sally to have to rely on others, even friends, but the reality is that she desperately needs help. The day-to-day cost of having a critically ill child is unending with the loss of income, the cost of petrol, parking and food when you are away from home for days on end.
Edie’s illness has been over a number of years now. She was diagnosed when she was two, and survived the treatment and recovered. November’s diagnosis that the tumour had returned was devastating – and there are no resources to fall back on.
“The local community has been fantastic,” Patrick said.
“Sally has had help from community organisations, from benefit functions, and from all sorts of kindnesses, but these have been one-off payments. She needs an income that she can rely on from week to week.”
Healesville For The Gales is accessible and uncomplicated. Forms pledging $10 a week are available at Wombat’s Chai and Barrique Wine Store. Payments can be dropped into either place in a sealed envelope with the pledgee’s name on it, so payments can be tracked.
Patrick will collect the money and pass it on to Sally who will email each pledgee a receipt.
“It’s just a way to give back to Sal and helping support someone who has been doing it pretty tough and who is hanging in there remarkably well,” Sean said.
Iggy added the idea struck him as a way community can come together and help each other without official constraints.
“It’s that simple solution to a complex problem,” he said.
For more information, phone Patrick on 0467 647 302, email to wolfepatrick101@gmail.com, or just call in at Wombat’s Chai 194 Maroondah Highway, or Barrique, 260 Maroondah Highway, Healesville.
