By KATH GANNAWAY
HEALESVILLE Coles employee Susan White admits to being “quite competitive”.
As a result, the winners are … Susan, Red Kite, HICCI, Coles and the Healesville community.
The Healesville store raised a massive $3690 for Red Kite, a charity that supports children and young adults with cancer, through an in-store promotion ranking number one ahead of 15 other suburban stores in the region.
Customers were asked to support the charity over three-and-a-half weeks throughout the campaign and Susan was on a mission, achieving a personal best of $2424.
“There’s no doubt I really wanted to win and wanted HICCI to benefit, but it was very much a team effort,” Susan said.
“I promoted it fiercely, and we had some friendly rivalry going on.
“My motivation was that two charities would benefit from it.”
Susan donated $60 to HICCI last year when she won a Community Hero award through Coles.
“When I can raise money for HICCI through work, I’ll do it,” she said. “They are such an awesome cause and they help so many people.”
HICCI Emergency Relief team leader Sheree Laumen said the sort of support that Susan had shown was terrific.
In the lead-up to Christmas, HICCI was facing a shortage of food, telling the Mail in November they were in real danger of not being able to meet the needs of people in the community over the Christmas period.
They put a call out for donations, and had an overwhelming response.
“We’ve never really asked for that much help before in such a targeted way and it was the best response we have ever had,” Ms Laumen said.
“Because of the big response we didn’t have to purchase any food for the whole of January and we would like to thank the community for the great response.”
She also thanked Susan for her individual effort on HICCI’s behalf and all the people who supported the Red Kite appeal.
“We do have a very caring community and it’s great for us as staff to see that the community of Healesville values the work that HICCI does.”
