After more than three years of supporting local farmers doing it tough in the drought and with seasonal conditions improving, the Rotary Club of Cobar has decided to close off their Drought Relief Program.
Rotary’s Drought Relief Program coordina-tor Gordon Hill said while many farmers are still recovering from the effects of the drought and will still be for some time, the severe drought conditions have eased and so subse-quently requests for assistance have also de-creased.
Mr Hill said for several years leading up to October 2018, farmers in western NSW had been experiencing severe drought conditions which resulted in many having to sell off starv-ing stock or reducing their numbers signifi-cantly and try and hold on to a small breeding flock.
“The Rotary Club of Cobar became aware of the deteriorating conditions being experienced by the local farmers and decided to assist them as much as possible,” Mr Hill said.
“The small Cobar club with 12 members initially used some club funds to purchase essential groceries and bottled water for distri-bution to needy farmers but the club members quickly realised that much more financial sup-port would be required.
“Limited funding was initially available via Rotary sources to assist some farmers but funding on a much larger scale was urgently required,” he said.
Mr Hill said a Queensland charity, the Aus-tralian Horizons Foundation and a partner group, Eye Candy Motor Sport, came to their aid.
They organised an online car raffle which sold out in five days and netted the Cobar club $90,000 which was used to buy three road trains of fodder which were delivered to farm-ers along the almost dry Darling River at Til-pa.
Groceries and bottled water were also pur-chased and delivered.
Since first becoming involved with the drought relief project in 2018, the Australian Horizons Foundation has contributed over $250,000 to help struggling farmers from Nyn-gan in the east to Wilcannia in the west.
Mr Hill said the “Rotary family” has also supported the Cobar club’s drought relief ef-forts with donations received from Rotary clubs in other states (Melbourne, Bendigo and Brisbane) along with support from a number of clubs around NSW who conducted fund rais-ing events to deliver approximately $800,000 in practical support in the form of fodder, gro-ceries, bottled water, working dog food and fuel vouchers for cash strapped farmers.
“In addition, over $200,00 was spent to assit farmers with travel costs for medical treatment, children’s Christmas presents, equipment re-pairs, council rates etc
“Even the local mail contractor helped the club by delivering countless grocery packs, etc free of charge to the farmers, some of whom lived up to 200kms from town,” Mr Hill said.
“In all, over $1 million dollars has been spent by the Cobar Rotary Club since October 2018 in supporting farmers devastated by drought in Western NSW.”
Mr Hill said the club made a conscious effort to purchase all the grocery items, water packs, meat, working dog food and fuel vouchers locally from Cobar businesses knowing that the businesses would also be helped to stay viable during the drought.
“Cobar Rotary Club would not have been able to provide this level of aid to the drought stricken farmers and the local community in Western NSW without the staunch support and encouragement from our charity partners and our Rotary family,” Mr Hill said.
