Appeal co-ordinator Sue Duggan announced via Facebook only hours after counting had been completed that the town had raised $8004.45, in a total for the town which exceeded $9300.
Earlier in the week she had researched just how long the town had been fund raising for the hospital, inspiring her volunteer team via hourly updates on the total.
By 9am, with several businesses and organisations delivering their final tallies to the Mangan St station, the total was $2140. By 11am it had increased to $3315, on the back of a Tongala pub raffle which raised $1670
She even had a plan to increase the sense of urgency among her volunteer collectors, presenting dome friendly rivalry by promoting a competition on the day with the collection teams to see who raised the most money.
It was all in the hunt to better the $5744.30 total from last year, a feat that was comfortably achieved before the group had finished knocking on the doors of homes in the town and in the rural regions of the Tongala area.
“In the last 40 years the town has contributed $160,000 to the appeal,” she said.
She paid tribute Sarah Lloyd from Old Tongala Pub, who co-ordinated the raffle and made such a significant contribution to the total.
Sue, herself, came to Tongala as a bush change, in 2000. She was inspired to become involved with the Good Friday Appeal many years before arriving in Tongala, after the birth of her son in 1983.
“He was a Royal Children’s Hospital patient. Every year, in some way shape or form, since then I have had some involvement, but this is my first year as area co-ordinator,” she said.
Twenty five volunteers were involved in the Tongala appeal, from money counters to door knockers and drivers collecting the volunteers from different areas around the town.
She thanked Tongala IGA and the bakery which provided hot cross buns and cakes for the volunteers, including the CFA, Girl Guides and the Tongala ‘’cert’’ team.
Tongala CFA brigade captain since 2021 has been Tristan Hornbuckle, in charge of a group of 25-strong volunteer firefighters.
“About a dozen of them are involved in the appeal,” he said.
The CFA captain said he was proud of the Tongala brigade’s history, a significantly self funded organisation which built its own station and owned several pieces of its fire fighting equipment outright.
“This station was community built,” the second generation firefighter said.
He joined the Tongala brigade in 2017, having been involved with the Newham brigade in the Hanging Rock area prior to that.
His father is still the captain at Newham.
Tongala has a pumper, a brigade-owned support vehicle and a tanker, all housed in the station which is only 15 years old.
He said the brigade had a vast representation of the community, from 17-year-olds to retirees, and responded to 120 calls a year.
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