As the financial year draws to a close, it’s a natural time of reflection—a time to remember where our energy, efforts, and finances have been best spent in the year gone by.
For us here at Rural Aid, the last 12 months have been some of the most confronting we’ve encountered as Australia’s most trusted rural charity. Our farmers have faced the worst natural disaster on record in Australia, with the catastrophic flooding of 2022 devastating rural lives and livelihoods to the tune of around $5 billion.
Thanks to the generosity of our unwavering supporters during our Mates Day appeal at the close of last year, we were able to provide critical disaster relief to hundreds rural Australians in need.
Your support allowed us to deliver water and fodder to animals on the brink of starvation, provide financial assistance to families who had lost homes, machinery, and income, and offer much needed in-person counselling to farmers trying to come to grips with the scale of the damage.
Without you, our supporters, this vital work would not have been possible, so we offer our heartfelt thanks along with that of our farmers, like Kim Storey.
A Eugowra lamb trader and crop farmer, Kim didn’t even have time to act when a flash flood bore down on her 100-acre property in November 2022. With two walls of water rising more than a metre in just 15 minutes, there was simply no time to stop it. With her property inundated, and with seven years of hard work washed away in a matter of minutes, Kim was airlifted to safety.
“It was so fast. There was no time. It’s like someone has taken a brush to the farm. The fences aren’t lying down, they are ripped out and gone. God knows where they are.”
“Sheep yards have been washed away, tanks washed away, pump shed, concrete troughs. The force of the water and how fast it was coming was just horrific, really,” she said.
Shortly after the Eugowra flooding event, Rural Aid was able to deliver 480 tonnes of hay to the region, bolstering relief efforts and offering starving animals much needed fodder as they stood in decimated paddocks. Rural Aid counsellors were also on the ground providing mental health support to farmers as they faced the unthinkable. Just a few weeks later, 25 of our volunteers returned to help with the most immediate of recovery needs.
“It’s hard to put into words how grateful you are… To have this many people helping out from Rural Aid has been amazing.”
In addition to this support, in the past three years Rural Aid has also distributed 72,300 bales of hay, 63 million litres of clean drinking water, and $18 million in financial aid to farmers facing hardship around the country. These incredible figures were only achieved thanks to you, our supporters.
“It’s hard to put into words how grateful you are for this kind of help. If I was doing this myself, it would take me months to get it all cleaned up and fixed and back up and running properly. To have this many people here from Rural Aid helping out has been amazing,” Kim said.
As our farmers embark on their long road to flood recovery, we appeal to you this tax season to really make your support count. Not only will your donation make a huge difference to those that feed our country, being fully tax deductible, it will also count for you. Our mates still need a hand, so let’s stand together once more and help rebuild the bush.