Scotch College

Pairing helps Marysville families get their lives together

Words: Ms Penne Pruden – President, Junior School Parents’ Association

While the Junior School Parents’ Association was collecting toiletries to send with Operation Angel to Victoria’s bushfire-affected districts (see the Junior School section of this issue), other industrious parents were organising a sponsorship program to support families affected by the fires in a most direct, personal way.

This program, known as the ‘Marysville Family Pairing Program’, specifically focuses on helping families from Marysville by pairing them with families from Melbourne. The program began when Neale, the Marysville postman, and his family lost their house during the fires and were offered accommodation in a Scotch family’s farm cottage. Discussions between Neale and his host led to a plan. With their consent, Neale would provide confidential details of fire-affected people in need, together with a brief of their current situation and most urgent requirements. These details would be used to match families to families appropriately.

The plan is now a reality. As the local postie, Neale knows everyone and can make direct contact with members of the Marysville community possible. He is the conduit who can tell displaced families about the pairing program and ensure that only bona fide families and sponsors come together. And because he is the postie, he can of course collect and distribute their mail.

Within seven days of Black Saturday, 21 families from Marysville were directly helped, equating to 69 people, five dogs, two cats and three birds! Help comes in many ways, including sourcing housing, equipment and even cars; providing essentials such as toiletries, home basics and furniture; helping with shopping for new clothing; and arranging get-togethers with other families for support. As many people have been too traumatised to look at the media, they are unaware of the aid that is available to them, so the program also provides information about government assistance relating to income protection, grants, Telstra diversion, bank services, and, sadly, funeral expenses.

Confidentiality – indeed anonymity – is the key to the pairing program, with the privacy of all parties (including the Melbourne families and in-kind donors) respected at all times. Although this program is not officially registered, both Christine Nixon’s and the Premier’s offices have been told about it. All donations, whether goods or monies, are documented in a database to ensure that all items are accounted for and meted out appropriately and immediately to families.

Generous donations from companies such as Pulse Pharmacies have enabled sponsor families to readily source new, quality goods for their Marysville families. Sponsor families have been incredibly resourceful, using their own personal networks to source required goods effectively – how quickly a cot can be found among friends and colleagues! Although this program started within the Scotch community, it has now broadened to include members from the wider community. This is a fabulous outcome, with some lifelong friendships being formed.

If you would like more information about sponsoring a family, donating goods, gift vouchers or corporate in-kind donations, please contact Kim Veall-Biggins (kimveall@bigpond.com) or Deb Walsh (debwalsh@walshcorp.com.au).

The pairing program highlights the strength of our school community in providing practical help in a time of the greatest natural disaster in our country’s history. GS