THRILLED to surpass last year’s fundraising efforts was the Hamilton contingency of the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday appeal this year.

 Hamilton Lions Club members were still busy counting the tally on Monday and Tuesday as buckets steadily came into the main counting depot at the Lions Club rooms.

Local RCH Good Friday Appeal coordinator, Allan Hadden was pleased to announce that they were not only on target to meet their $70,000 goal but were sitting at around $72,000 at the time of going to print.

He was also delighted to say that he anticipated that the online donations would likely take the result past this figure.

He was at the forefront of the endeavour and said there were several more tubs remaining outstanding to count, that well and truly surpassed last year’s result of almost $62,000.

He expressed his gratitude to the army of volunteers who joined the Hamilton Lions Club to help collect funds locally including the Hamilton Urban CFA, Hamilton SES and Hamilton Kangaroos Football and Netball Club.

“The local support has once again been wonderful,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of support from the Kangaroos with 17 players attending (and) seven members from the Hamilton SES.

“It’s been fantastic.

“There’s still more (tubs) to come in from Dunkeld so the tally is set to go up.”

Mr Hadden was also thrilled with the amount that had been raised through the annual Easter hamper raffle drawn by Wannon MP Dan Tehan, that tallied $3300 and was won by Maureen from Terang, with second prize going to a Hamilton person.

“CFA Units who assisted with the Hamilton Urban brigade, were Grange and Tarrington Fire Brigades,” he said.

“Our usual volunteers including Necola and Nola door knocked all day for a fabulous $1000 plus.

“Mulleraterong staff and clients also assisted for which we are very grateful.”

Mr Hadden also gave a special thank you to Wannon Security who have managed the security of all monies raised around Hamilton for many years.

“It should be noted that many volunteers have been door knocking for many years,” he said.

“Those listed above are examples of the passion and dedication that these wonderful people provided over many years.

“It’s been a great effort by everybody who has helped with the Appeal in any capacity.”

Another large contributor to the community’s total was Hamilton’s RCH bake sale day last week, which event coordinator, Erika Murphy said was a huge success.

“From the bake sale, and Two Doors providing egg and bacon rolls, we raised $7222.50,” she said.

“We still need to add up some collections and donations - we are estimating to hit $9000 in total.”

Ms Murphy said that it had been a wide community effort, and expressed her thanks to everyone who supported the bake sale day, and those who had donated to the RCH. 

“It was very busy, there were easily a couple hundred there on the day,” she said.

“We also had some people driving past who quickly stopped in.

“Thank you to everyone who contributed to the amount we have - we look forward to doing it all again next year.”

Hamilton sat in the top 10 regional fundraiser totals on Good Friday, among larger towns Geelong and Ballarat.

Casterton had the CFA and other volunteers tin rattling down the main street on Good Friday for locals and travelers passing through and raised $27,002 in total for the town.

Other local towns did not let their smaller community size get in the way of contributing a large sum to the fundraiser, with Condah’s total sitting at $39,000 and Macarthur’s at $33,470.

Cavendish raised $6860 in total, and Coleraine raised $5590, both surpassing the previous year’s total.

From tin shaking to raffles, fundraisers and auctions, regional and rural Victoria raised a remarkable $5,261,913 for 2024, outstanding last year’s regional tally of $2,955,656.