Raising funds to support approved grants and wish list items, allowing the RCH Foundation to respond and service the most pressing needs for the hospital.

Area: North east Victoria

The story so far

The Wangaratta Auxiliary was formed on 31st May 1977. Our founder, Vilma Clark, moved to Wangaratta from Melbourne where she had been involved with the Royal Children’s Hospital.  When she discovered the lack of an auxiliary in her new town, she set about to rectify this problem by forming one. Sadly Vilma passed away 12 years ago, but our current President and Treasurer, Pat Griffin, is one of the founding members and has been an active member for 40 years, as well as our recently retired member Dawn Anderson.

We are a small group of 12 members (average age 80), but we still manage to fit quite a bit into our yearly calendar, with the ‘younger’ members picking up the slack! We receive a lot of help and support from family and friends, who although they don’t have time to fully commit, still like to lend a hand when they can.

The year 2014/2015 saw $17,000 funded to the Children’s Cancer Centre for a new spectra optia apheresis system.
The year 2015/2106 the auxiliary funded $10,000 to the Early Learning Mosiac Mural.
The year 2016/2017 we funded a treatment chair to the value of $20,000 for the Day Medical and Day Oncology Unit, and also funded a Specialised Commode to the value of $4,728.

What we are working on

The Wangaratta Auxiliary holds monthly Hoy afternoons, we run a variety of raffles, street stalls where we sell all our home cooked baking, preserves, sauces and relish, craft items and knitwear.  We have two to three bus trips to the pokies each year with over 30 raffle prizes, which are very popular and tickets sell quickly.  We hold sausage sizzles at the local supermarket, where we all go home smelling of grilled onions!  However, our biggest, most successful fundraiser of the year is the Oxley Bush Market, which coincides with the Wangaratta Jazz Festival, where we hold a stall selling all our goodies.  It is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun and a good PR/networking opportunity.

We are currently looking into possible funding towards the Cardiology and Music Therapy Grants.

We are passionate about supporting kids with cancer, but we also fundraise to support approved grants and wish list items.

Office bearers

President/Treasurer: Patricia Griffin
Vice-President: Jean Freeman
Secretary: Georgina Rea

Contact

Patricia Griffin

Phone
0478 886 651

Email
[email protected]