Australia would be in a hard place if it wasn’t for volunteers.
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So many of our greatest events and welfare groups have achieved so much thanks to ordinary Aussies willing to stick their hand up to pitch in and help out – without expecting a cent in return.
The Sydney 2000 Olympics was built on the back of volunteers.
Service clubs continue to give each weekend at markets, fairs and sporting events.
The Central Western Daily pages in the lead-up to Christmas have contained many stories revealing the darker side to our community.
For every happy family shopping, spending and looking forward to festive celebrations, charity and welfare groups have revealed there are hundreds of families in our own region who are suffering.
They have been forced to turn to welfare groups to ask for help to get by.
And many of those groups are staffed by volunteers.
The 2016 Census revealed that 3.6 million people or 19 per cent of Australians 15 years and over were engaged in voluntary work through an organisation or group.
That’s up slightly [1.2 per cent] from five years earlier when the last census was done.
In Orange 20.3 per cent of the population indicated they were volunteers – again it was up on the 2011 figure.
Of course the number of volunteers is like a bottomless pit.
For every person who offers to help there are plenty more positions vacant.
Ronald McDonald House Orange has revealed the good work some of its volunteers will be doing on Christmas Day.
They will giving up part of their own family lunch to help out three families who are staying at the hospital while their children receive care and treatment in hospital.
All of the families are from out of town and cannot be with their own families on Christmas Day.
Primary school teacher and volunteer David Haynes said there was a lot to be gained personally through volunteering.
“It’s nice to give back something,” he said.
“You know you are providing a service for families of ill children that have to come a long way.”
To all you volunteers here in Orange, for any organisation or group, we salute you for your efforts in helping others out, in making things happen, where otherwise without volunteers they wouldn’t have happened.