The volunteers at Tarana’s rural fire service no longer have to worry about who will do the washing up after community events, thanks to a grant from the NSW Rural Fire Services Association.
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While it might not sound like much, funds to purchase an industrial dishwasher for Tarana’s fire shed have lifted a heavy burden on the voluntary bush brigade, who were considering no longer hosting events due to the amount of work involved.
“We hold functions which cater for up to 100 people from time to time and the dish washing by hand was becoming onerous,” the service’s catering officer Lynne Webb said.
The brigade hosts an annual ‘Christmas in July’, regular farmers markets and other events but only has around five or six volunteers involved in catering.
“Some of the people felt because we are all volunteers they were getting sick of washing and drying dishes and glasses and we were moving towards not holding any more functions.”
Ms Webb said the $2,500 grant was of particular importance because raising the money to buy a dishwasher would have been a big task for the service. As of last year the brigade had 37 members.
“We could not have got this without the RFSA support as we are a small community and fund raising is quite challenging,” she said.
“Brigade and community members can spend the time at the function instead of washing up.”
President of the RFSA (the representative body for volunteers and staff of the Rural Fire Service) Ken Middleton said the association’s grant scheme enhanced brigade’s abilities to operate.
“These are volunteer members who give up their time to help their community during a time of greatest need and it is wonderful that we can support them while they are supporting us.”
Ms Webb encouraged other rural fire brigades to apply for the association’s grants.
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