The festive season can be a wonderful opportunity for communities to come together and support each other. Girl Guides do a fantastic job of supporting the community, and there are some lovely recent examples of Guide Units giving back to farmers.
Cards for farmers
North Melbourne is a long way away from the farms battling drought in parts of rural Australia, but the drought has been on the girls’ minds.
A month or two ago, one of the North Melbourne Girl Guides asked her Leaders if there was something she could do for the farmers in drought-affected areas.
The Leaders suggested that the girls could show farmers that they were thinking of them by making them some Christmas cards. The Leaders connected with Rural Aid‘s Christmas Cards 4 Farmers drive, and the girls poured their time and creativity into making cards to send to farmers.
Goodies for Gippsland farmers
The Box Hill Guides and the Balwyn Guides held an Empty Christmas Tree drive to support the Gippsland farming community over Christmas.
The Leaders worked with the Guides, their families, and their friends to gather useful items for the farmers. The amount of items they collected was mind-boggling. There were tins and bags of pet food, bags of flour and sugar, dried fruit, pasta, pasta sauce, toiletry items, and much more.
To give you more of an idea, take a look at the room where they were holding everything they collected!
There were so many goodies that they completely filled a station wagon, a family car, and a trailer. Two Leaders, Georgia and Rosalie, drove all the items out to Gippsland and the goods were later distributed to the farming community.
Small gestures can make a big difference
The Box Hill and Balwyn Guides collected an impressive amount of groceries, and the North Melbourne Guides spread festive cheer. These Guide Units all wanted to support strangers in challenging circumstances.
Whether it occurs on a large scale or small scale, gestures like these can connect us all as individuals.
After the farmers received their donations from the Box Hill and Balwyn Guides, a Gippsland dairy farmer called Kathrine reached out to Girl Guides Victoria with a special message.
‘Something really nice happened this morning,’ Kathrine told us. ‘A bag of goodies turned up, special delivery by one of the local Girl Guide Leaders. Evidently, the Box Hill Girl Guides have organised the grocery bags for distribution to the farmers in the hope that it will give them a smile and they will know that people are thinking of them. Well, it worked. It definitely made me smile, and to be totally honest, made me a bit teary. Their kindness and thoughtfulness really touched me.’
Community service can be a great reminder that we all belong to a community.
