By Mikayla Van Loon
Mount Evelyn Fire Brigade is bringing back its annual garage sale fundraiser and with less than a week until the event, the members are getting excited about being back in the community.
Brigade secretary Shaan Lewis said the last garage sale the CFA was able to host was in 2018 and was then interrupted by the pandemic.
“Traditionally, it has been our greatest, our biggest fundraiser of the year. We usually do a Bunnings sausage sizzle, then it’s our Australia Day carwash at the start of the year,” she said.
“So being able to have it again is a huge bonus for us because it also brings the community together and it’s a great way for people to catch up with each other as they haven’t seen each other for a while.”
Being held on Saturday 14 October, Shaan said as it is the day of the referendum, she hopes it will draw lots of people out to support the brigade.
“We’re really hoping that people will go out and vote and then pop by the garage sale or vice versa, pop by the garage sale, and then go and vote.”
Although having to limit the range of donations this year, Shaan said donations are still required to help give the CFA enough to sell.
“Because of Covid everybody’s been cleaning out their houses and sheds in their basements to give themselves something to do during lockdown. So we have had a pretty slow run up to now. We’ve only got a week left.
“We have restricted what we would usually take because anything we don’t sell costs us money to dispose of so we’re only taking electrical items, white goods, plants, barbecue items, either barbecues themselves or anything that goes to the barbecue, tools, things like that.”
With the brigade’s ultra light tanker needing replacement in the near future, Shaan said the focus of the fundraising will be to raise enough to upgrade the vehicle.
“Like most vehicles it has a shelf life as a random life and it’s rapidly approaching that now. So we’re fundraising this year to buy a new one and it costs over $150,000 to buy,” she said.
“We are specifically fundraising this year to purchase a new one outright so we don’t have to ask the CFA to subsidise that so any donations, any purchases from the garage sale will go straight to fund that ultra light tank.”
An ultra light tanker holds around 550 litres of water and is used to reach fires in places a normal tanker may not be able to get to, whether it be dense bush or on the Warburton Trail.
“Our current ultra light, which we got in about 2010 went up to Flowerdale earlier this year and it’s really good for country sides that can’t handle one of the big red trucks or can’t fit a big red truck through a gate.
“So we use it quite frequently and it’s really important to have in our fleet of vehicles.”
While the garage sale is primarily about fundraising, members are also looking forward to engaging with the community especially in the lead up to bushfire season.
“After three or four years of really hard slog with Covid and the bushfires of 2019/2020, we’re still here, we’re still protecting the community and with the garage sale back up and running, hopefully, things are getting back to normal,” Shaan said.
“Also, being able to help the community prepare for what’s going to be a really bad fire season. We’ve just seen what’s happened in Gippsland, over the last week or so and to provide that education for them and to answer any questions they might have about their property.”
The Garage Sale will get underway from 7am until 3pm on Saturday 14 October at the Mount Evelyn CFA fire station on York Road.
To organise a donation, contact garagesale@mtevelyncfa.org.au or call 0429 354 487.
