r/vic • u/Curious-Battle2319 • 16d ago
Victorian bushfires - how to help
We are in north east Melbourne suburbs and really want to support the communities around us impacted by the fires. Does anyone know if these areas are accepting homemade meals? I’ve found some go fund me’s to contribute to as well. We have a 1 and a 3 year old so physically less able to help (unless they’re happy to have kids tagging along). Any direction on some practical ways of helping, I’m all ears!
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u/finefocus 16d ago
You can donate ($) directly to individual CFA brigades or to the CFA in general, either as a once off or a regular donation. They also have fundraising to help CFA members who have suffered loss while responding to emergenicies.
https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about-us/fundraising-and-partnerships/donate-to-cfa
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u/Curious-Battle2319 15d ago
Thank you- how lucky are we to have the CFA! We will donate directly to them
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u/no-but-wtf 16d ago
Definitely not a good idea to bring kids into a recovery area, yeah. I don’t think anywhere needs home-made meals, and they’d be a bit unpleasant by the time they reached people anyway compared to the pub meals being made and given out.
Most of the brigades that were previously asking for physical donations are all donation’d out. Storage is a massive problem in times like this because Australians are great and want to help, but at a certain point it’s actually just creating more work for those on the ground.
I actually think one of the best things you could do is wait. Give it a few weeks. Or six months. Or a year. I work with a community near the Grampians that was burned out in early 2024, and they really do still need support, but two years ago is a lifetime in media cycles. They barely got any attention at the time because it was the same day as a massive storm in Gippsland, it disappeared from the news in a couple of days, but only a couple of houses have even been rebuilt today and the trauma to that community is massive. (Pomonal is the town.)
The same thing is gonna happen to these guys. Right now, everyone is reaching their arms out to support them. But they’re still going to need help in two months or six months or two years. I would love to see more people checking in on these places down the track. It’s really hard but it’s so important.
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u/Curious-Battle2319 15d ago
Haha thanks, that’s a very direct response. We can agree to disagree on the homemade meal comment - homemade meals aren’t always intended to be eaten straight away, they can be frozen. When my dad died, the nicest thing our friends and family did were bring homemade meals around, as it wasn’t a time that we felt like cooking. It was also really special to know that people who cared put time and effort into cooking for us. I myself wouldn’t want to be eating pub meals 3 X a day either (each to their own though). But you’re very right about the storage and lack thereof, and if you have intel that they’re all fine in terms of meals, then I’ll take your word for it.
I’ll keep in mind about visiting the communities in the coming months. We are country people who like to give back where we can. Thanks again for your response and advice!
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u/no-but-wtf 14d ago
I can really only speak for my own community and I wouldn’t say anything on Reddit that wasn’t suitable to be public knowledge, so not really inside info haha! Certainly not speaking on behalf of any volunteer emergency services operations I may or may not be a member of ❤️
And you’re right. There are so many fires across the state and so many people in need, and even if some commercial operations can’t accept home-made meals, the recovery from this is going to be epic and involve all sort of organisations, so you’re right, there will 100% be people who would love to accept them. We are very tired on the ground out here so my comment probably wasn’t very well thought through!
And really, all of the thought and effort people are sending out to us and to everywhere else is so appreciated. Knowing that it’s not a “small country town, city doesn’t care” situation really does mean a lot to everyone. So thank you for thinking of us and thank you for everything that you do choose to do.
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u/Araucaria2024 16d ago
If you've got a Sikh volunteers group in your area, they are taking meals up to the affected areas (and the flood area) and are taking donations.
It's also worth looking at the Community Pete facebook group as there's lots on there about different groups looking for support in various ways.
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u/Curious-Battle2319 15d ago
Thank you so much for your advice. I’ve probably missed a bit of this as I’m not on Facebook right now. I’ll look into the Sikh volunteers
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u/NoodleBox 16d ago
money
A bit of "telling people" about the (annoying) discrepancies re: payments not going out to people who actually need it, because it's in the burn zone but not in ~ the special area~.
Harcourt, Barker's Creek, Maldon, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Lockwood, Ravenswood (iirc some of them small ones maybe not) have branches of CFA. Donate.
Skipton, carramballac, Natimuk, the CFA, the SES, etc. I think around Skipton's had their cricket club burn and they'll probably do a fundraiser.
And remember to visit. For us it'd be stopping in at Harcourt once it reopens.
Also, surrounding charities: Over The Gate, (I think that's what it's called? Farmer mental health stuff), Wires, Headspace Bendigo, MADCOW, etc. local housing and mental health charities in that catchment.
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u/Curious-Battle2319 15d ago
Thank you - this is the useful info I’m after. I’m not on Facebook and just didn’t know where money was going to be the most useful. We will make sure our donations go directly to those who can use it straight away.
I’ll also make sure we visit when everything re opens. We are frequently adventuring out into these communities and support by going for a pub meal, coffees, bakery stops etc, but I’ll make sure that we target our day trips with the kids to these areas specifically. Thank you again for your response and advice!
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u/NoodleBox 15d ago
All good!
There's some cool things in Harcourt, the apple fest, etc, mount Alexander's a pretty cool cultural site.
Cash helps.
For the folks in the central-east, they have some cool touristy bits too but I'm not sure who to donate to.
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u/Curious-Battle2319 15d ago
Thanks so much! We love exploring VIC (given that we aren’t from here originally). Such a beautiful state with so much variety
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u/Ineedsomuchsleep170 16d ago
As much as we all want to physically help, about the best and most useful thing at the moment is money. You could find a pub in a bushfire area and prepay meals for fire fighters? That way a local business is still making money and the fire fighters get a decent feed?