By Kath Gannaway
For as long as most CFA volunteers can remember, collecting for the kids on Good Friday has been as much a part of their year as bushfires and road crashes.
Certainly in the 40 years that Healesville CFA captain Graeme Bates has been a firey, rattling tins for the Royal Children’s Hospital, sounding the siren as they drive around the streets and collecting down the main street, the Good Friday Appeal has been a great part of the work they do in the community.
Every year since 1932, the appeal has set records with the amount raised in 2016 an astounding $17,445,624.38. The CFA’s contribution through the many brigades that take part and the communities that support them, is a big part of that, and no doubt the RCH will be hoping for another record breaking year.
If the volunteers who give their time on Good Friday needed any more inspiration than the fact that the Royal Children’s Hospital is an esteemed institution caring for kids from around Australia, and overseas, it is reinforced by the people they meet as they rattle the tins, and in their various CFA roles.
“Every year, we meet people from our area who comment that they have had their kids or their grandkids in the hospital and they want to talk about that and tell you how good the hospital is,” Captain Bates said.
“You go to fires and see kids involved, and you see them involved in accidents as well.
“Firies always have a soft spot in their hearts for kids.
“We do it for the kids … we all do it for the kids,” he said.
But they don’t do it alone.
When you hear the siren, or see your local CFA volunteer in your street, or town, dig deep.
