Shaking tins and helping kids

Macedon CFA brigade captain Greg Snart. (Marco De Luca)

Elsie Lange

If you’re wandering the Macedon Ranges on April 15 and hear the tinkling sound of shaking money tins, you won’t be imagining it.

In Macedon, Romsey and Campbells Creek, fire brigades will again partake in this year’s Good Friday Appeal (GFA), raising money for the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Altogether, these stations have raised nearly $225,000 since their individual fundraising efforts began.

Macedon CFA brigade captain, Greg Snart, has been involved with the GFA for 24 years and is excited for this year’s event.

“We still get people to the station at eight o’clock on Good Friday morning, and we go out and we door knock as many houses as we can,” Mr Snart said.

“We do some roadside collection at the exit ramp of the freeway, on the Macedon exit, which is good timing because it also coincides with the Autumn Festival.”

While Macedon will be taking physical donations on the day, neighbouring Romsey will be fundraising through virtual tin shakes, and through collection points leading up to and on appeal day.

Campbells Creek will also partake in a virtual tin shake, with plans for a door to door donation drive on Good Friday too.

“My daughter spent about six weeks in the Royal Children’s Hospital for about six weeks when she was two and a half or three… she spent six weeks in their heart ward, ” Mr Snart said.

“I was virtually most of that time and seeing the work these people did, with young kids having open heart surgery, and the care and attention they give to kids, is just amazing.

“Anything I can do to help out with that, I’m more than happy to do,” he said.