Look First Op Shop appreciates the patronage of many local customers, alongside the visitors from out of town.
The volunteer staff enjoy the chats with the locals as well as the visitors, asking where they call home and where they are headed.
L-R: Sue Morse, volunteer serving in the Op Shop; Volunteers, Jackie Warren, left, and Dot Morton, right, working in Op Shop. The lady in between does not do much. Just stands around all day looking glamorous!; Much needed special wheelchair bought with Ukraine Appeal donations for maimed veteran.
Photos courtesy The Buloke Times
The staff are encouraged too, when they receive frequent compliments on the attractive presentation of the Shop. The secondhand furniture sold from Bev’s Baubles is appreciated by both the donors and the buyers setting up home in Donald.
This is made possible by a team of volunteers, each with their creative talents and skills, giving freely of their time in between family commitments, holidays, health concerns, operations and medical appointments!
This week is National Volunteers Week from 20th May to 26th May. So, we take the time to say thank you and express our appreciation to our volunteers who staff the Op Shop.
The Look First Op Shop is the frontispiece of the fund, “Horizons – Local and Beyond Inc” which sponsors the Shop. The theme behind the name is that we look beyond the “four walls” of our homes, our town, our country as we contribute into our local organisations and overseas – Ukraine, Niger, Indonesia and Timor Leste.
In the past few months local donations from the Fund have gone to Food Bank, Donald Friends and Neighbours, Salvation Army Christmas Appeal, Youth Group, VRI Hall, Angel Tree Prison Fellowship Appeal (Christmas gifts for children of Victorian prisoners), Chamber of Commerce’s Christmas promotion, Donald History Group project, Good Feed, Christmas Carol Service barbecue, Red Gate Community Garden, Hockey, Netball, Football Clubs’ Juniors (to subsidise family costs) and two local families in need.
Not forgetting our Northern Territory’s indigenous communities, donations have been sent to Katherine’s “Kalano” Community Association’s after school program. This was spent on food for a cooking event, shoes for school and “Santa” sacks that had in them clothes, something to eat, and something for fun – received with delight.
The Fund continues to support tertiary students from low income families in Ukraine with quarterly payments, currently supporting seven students.
The Ukraine Appeal continues to receive donations and these are sent onto displaced families, frontline soldiers and veterans with permanent injuries.
Amazing variety
It is amazing the variety of items purchased and events organised with the assistance of the donations. Some of these are cold and flu tablets valued next to ammunition (we don’t donate that!), plastic bags used for holding cooked food and sealed with heat sealer – the sealer was bought with donations, stoves for cooking and stoves for warmth in the trenches, wheelchairs and spare parts, crutches, tourniquets for soldiers, first aid equipment for first responders, veterans’ hub – assisted with renovations for house for veterans to use and receive services, picnic for children whose fathers died on frontline and for families displaced by the War, Christmas parties for children, Christmas gifts for frontline troops, even a guillotine to cut strips for camouflage nets, to name a few. One grandma displaced by the War had to move to her granddaughter’s home, who had no room for her except a hut in the farmyard, donations helped to renovate the hut so she could live in it!
L-R: A small boy in Ukraine wearing a jumper and beanie knitted by a donor and sent to Ukraine from Donald.; Clothes sent from Donald, set out in a church in Nizhyn, Ukraine for people to select what they would like to wear; Elizabeth Mercel, volunteer packing knitted bandages for Danya Leprosy Hospital in Niger.
Photos: The Buloke Times
Other overseas aid has been boxes of handknits sent to Niger, to a leprosy hospital and to Ukraine for winter warmth; supporting one child in Indonesia through his schooling years; programs for early detection of leprosy in Timor Leste.
We thank the Lord for His blessing on Horizons – Local and Beyond, as we look to Him for guidance, and give thanks for the volunteers who make the activities so enjoyable. If you are interested in volunteering, phone Alison 0407 313 648, or Carrie 0437 978 225.
This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 21 May 2024.
