Helping bushfire evacuees find normalcy in the chaos
When a grandmother and her twin granddaughters arrived at an evacuation centre seeking refuge from bushfires, Australian Red Cross volunteers sprang to action to help them get to their school formal.
In 2018 fires in Central Queensland forced grandmother Barb and her family to flee their home, with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. They headed to an evacuation centre at Miriam Vale, where they ended up staying for days.
But Barb’s granddaughters had a very pressing question on their minds. What were they going to wear to their Year 10 formal?
So Barb mentioned their problem to our evacuation centre volunteer Joy and by the end of the day they had pulled together outfits for the girls.
The women searched through the donations that had poured into the centre and found brand new handbags, cosmetics, shoes and perfume. Their next stop was the op shop up the road for new evening dresses.
Barb says the most touching thing of all was a hand-written note found inside the cosmetics bags the girls received. With many people having left their homes indefinitely, an unknown person had collected toiletries and cosmetics, put them into beautiful bags and left them at the centre for anyone who needed them.
“There was a gorgeous note that someone had personally written which brought tears to my eyes. It was so beautiful. It was such a caring thing,” she says.
By all reports, the twins had a great night. “They had a lovely night thanks to Red Cross. Without them it wouldn’t have happened as well as it did.”
Barb, who during the evacuation stayed in a van on a friend’s property, says she enjoyed dropping into the centre and got great support from our volunteers there too. “I’ve had emotional support, but also toiletries, sheets, pillowcases, pillows, towels, meals.
I’m pretty overwhelmed because there are people out there who really care. It’s times like these that communities pull together but Red Cross helped that community pull together even more.
“I do have a lot more strength now and I have a lot to give too. After it’s all finished I might have to do some volunteer work myself.”
For Joy it was mutually beneficial, having formed a brief friendship with Barb and her daughter.
“It’s very rewarding. It’s worth the effort to get up at 4am when you’re called up for a deployment. You pack so fast and try to arrange things so fast. I had to run around and water my 100 pot plants in the dark before I left – it’s good to know the effort’s appreciated and you’ve done things to help.”
Barb says a crisis can have surprising benefits. “It’s times like this that bring people together, to bring more love into the world.”
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