Macedon Ranges council and Macedon Ranges Community Enterprises have joined forces to relaunch an emergency relief fund.
The fund, established within Bendigo Bank’s Community Enterprise Foundation, will involve public donations channeled into projects that address the community’s needs and priorities.
The fund is governed by an appeal committee, comprising representatives from council, MRCE, and local health and emergency recovery organisations.
The committee can activate an appeal for donations for any emergency event where community members are significantly impacted, and is not dependent on the declaration of a ‘declared emergency’.
The groups said funds raised will be distributed to affected communities in a timely, considered and coordinated way, to reduce the risk of opportunistic scams and targeting support to the areas that matter most during and after an emergency.
MRCE chief executive officer Jo-ann Irwin said the emergency relief fund will ensure any donations received in response to an emergency will be responsibly managed to ensure maximum community benefit.
“When emergencies happen, people want to help. This appeal gives them a trusted way to do that, so help can flow quickly to affected communities,” she said.
Mayor Kate Kendall said the concept for the appeal was instigated in 2015, following the identified need for somewhere that people and businesses could donate to a community after an emergency.
“Thankfully, our local appeal hasn’t yet been activated in the Macedon Ranges, but since its initial conception, the model has spread around Victoria and Australia, most notably used after large bushfires including the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20,” she said.
“The renewal and relaunch of this appeal in the Macedon Ranges will hold us in good stead for future emergencies, where there may be an urgent need for short or long-term support and where people – whether local or otherwise – just want to contribute in some way.”
The terms of reference for the Macedon Ranges Community Response Appeal Committee were finalised in December, with the committee sitting as part of a recovery subcommittee of the Macedon Ranges Municipal Emergency Management Planning Committee.
