AFTER a high-risk pregnancy and the subsequent medical care needed at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne for their new-born child early last year, shearer Ken Bungard and partner Tara Stephens found themselves very grateful to be offered the option of Ronald McDonald House (RMH) as a place to stay.
The experience ended up having a profound impact on Ken and motivated him to financially support the facility – with the RMH mission to ease some of the practical burdens on the families of seriously ill and injured children, he saw first-hand how important that help was.
“I was really worried about accommodation because it’s not cheap in Melbourne,” Ken said.
“And they said, ‘oh, we’ll put you up in the Ronald McDonald House’ – and I never really knew much about it.
“We stayed there for about 10 days and just some of the things I (saw, especially) people with crook kids … you can only look at your phone and read magazines so much.
“I went and read up how the donations worked (and) how the rooms work – it costs $5000 a year to sponsor a room and I went back and said, ‘surely we can get something moving and just talk to a few people’.”
After several conversations and about eight months to devise a suitable fundraiser, Ken was at Mepungah Pastoral at Wannon with some of those already involved, to further promote the March long weekend event he hopes even more community members in the district will get behind.
“The big plan is to shear here for 12 hours straight on Merino hoggets and hopefully shear around the 2000 mark,” he said.
“The aim is to try and raise over 20 grand and sponsor a room for four or five years.”
The response has been widespread and strong across the industry, with the search for “the right shed … close to Hamilton” finishing at the Falkenberg family-owned farm 15 minutes out of town.
“They’re right behind it,” Ken said.
“It’s not just under one shearing contractor, so we came up with the name, Western District Shearing Ltd 2024.
“There’s already four big contractors (as) major sponsors.”
He added it was a new thing for the Ronald McDonald House to have an agricultural fundraising event like this and was keen to get further sponsorship support by “just (letting) the community know what’s really happening” with even the Lions Club turning up to run a barbeque on the day.
“It’s 100 per cent non-profit, so every dollar made will go to Ronald McDonald (House),” Ken said.
“We’re going to start at 5am and go to 5pm. There’s a team of probably 60 people all up, all volunteers.”
One of those volunteers, Roger Pearse, said the incentive for his involvement was a no-brainer.
“It’s our pleasure to do something, especially for a charity that does so much for people,” he said.
Another, Miriama Power, said she had been working with Ken and Tara “quite a bit” and was also easy to convince.
“Once they brought the idea to me, I was on board straight away,” she said.
“I just always think if I have any kids or family or friends have kids, it’s a good idea to just help out in one way or another.”
Tara said she had also been impacted by the experiences of other families during her stay at RMH and it had made her motivation very strong.
“You don’t realise what some families are going through until you go into there,” she said.
The fundraiser is scheduled for Saturday, March 9 from 5am to 5pm at Mepungah Pastoral, Falkenbergs Road, Wannon.
For more information, email shearcoswecare@gmail.com
