When hardship hits a community, Australians can always be relied on to rally around and do their bit to help out in any way they can.
The recent bushfires in Tasmania and elsewhere have provided yet more examples of the wonderful spirit of togetherness that we often see when people are facing adversity. The Blaze Aid fence rebuilding charity – which was set up after Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday disaster – has been hard at work in Tasmania, New South Wales and elsewhere … and grey nomad volunteers have been plentiful.
The charity sets up base near communities ravaged by fire and calls for volunteers to help patch and replace burnt fences in the area. The Australian newspaper reports that many of the volunteers are grey nomads travelling in the region in their motorhomes and caravans.
Victorian traveller and grey nomad Charlie Sorel was apparently one of the first to answer the Blaze Aid call in Tasmania. A retired Melbourne accountant who now gives his address as “on the road”, Mr Sorel had already spent several weeks touring Tasmania with his wife before deciding to devote a fortnight of their caravanning holiday to fixing fences.
“It just feels good to help out,” Mr Sorel told the Australian. “We’d always intended to do some volunteer work as we travel around Australia; now I think we might be joining some of those other Blaze Aid camps in NSW as we head north chasing the sun.”
In return for their free labour, the volunteers base themselves and usually their caravans and motorhomes in the local Blaze Aid camp. Often food is donated by local stores and cooked for them by Rotary, Lions and Country Women’s Association groups.
For more information on how and where to volunteer for Blaze Aid work, visit www.blazeaid.com.au
Do you do volunteer work as you travel? Would you like to? Comment below.
We volunteer with an organisation called Frontier Services – Outback Links. It places volunteers for short periods with families on outback properties to help out in many ways, particularly when the families are experiencing temporary health issues and just need a hand to get through a bad time.
We also recently volunteered at a rural NSW property helping with the restoration of an old slab timber cottage – we found that one on the Grey Nomads classifieds.
It is always worthwhile to help out someone else and you meet some really wonderful people.