Bruce Townsville Service Project
Disaster Relief Australia | July 2020
Its a beautiful early morning in Northern Queensland. Adam and his band of Merry men & women from Townsville, rendezvous at the 1 Million Strong Gym on the outskirts of town. Through Adam’s considerable efforts with local community service organisations like Legacy and DFA he has been able to organise a weeks worth of work for his team. Aptly supported by Brendan (Kit n Stores), 14x Service Projects are kicking off today and will continue on through the week.
The wonderful recipient’s are War Widows residing in and around beautiful Townsville. In some cases, these lovely ladies have reluctantly asked for a little help around their home and garden. Most if not all, have been very independent and have grown up, not usually asking others for help.
DRA being a veteran based non government organisation, with support from first responders and civilians alike are only to happy to help out. It is a symbiotic relationship. We benefit from the mateship, the feeling of belonging, its the community interaction, the feeling of doing good and the actual physical work is somehow therapeutic for us. We laugh, we joke together and we are united in the task at hand and very serious when it comes down to the work needed & those that we can help.
Its a win win scenario for like minded individuals to be able to provide the manpower, with the necessary skills & resources so others may benefit. The team contributes to something meaningful and worthwhile.
My role as a brand new Volunteer of DRA and the National Logistics Team is to familiarize myself with DRA Operations and Services. I’m in Townsville to monitor and evaluate Logistic Operations and to see where we can help DRT Managers like Adam, improve current processes and systems to “enable” more Operations and larger Service projects.
It was an extremely humbling experience for me personally to see the appreciation from one particular lady, who we were able to help. She was moved to tears as nearly was Adams band of merrymen and women.
