Schools, cadets and clubs across the Inverell district are rallying behind Legacy Week again this year, as the local branch prepares for the national badge appeal running from Sunday, 30 August to Saturday, 5 September. The appeal will be marked right across New England, with independent Legacy clubs also running badge sales and events in Armidale and Tamworth.
Legacy Club of Inverell General Manager Lyn Kitawal said the district’s badge sales network stretches well beyond the town itself, with volunteers set to sit outside the shop in Bundarra to sell badges to the local community.
Local schools are once again lending a hand, with Inverell High School taking a tray on Wednesday morning, McIntyre High School on Thursday morning, and Holy Trinity on Friday morning. The Air Force cadets will sell badges on Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturday morning, while Warialda Golf and Bowling Club is taking a tray as it does each year.
“So we’ve covered a fair bit of our area,” Ms Kitawal said.
Volunteers are still needed to help sell badges in Inverell on Thursday and Friday from 12pm to 4pm, with anyone able to spare the time encouraged to get in touch with the club directly.
For those unfamiliar with what Legacy actually does, Ms Kitawal said the organisation’s support is directed at the families left behind, not the veterans themselves.
“We don’t support the veteran themselves, but we are… we support the families, and families I mean the widows of our World War II veterans and the partners of our young Afghanistan veterans who the veteran is still alive but has service-related injuries that have been accepted by DVA,” she said.
That support currently extends to 24 children and their mothers in the district, with Legacy providing a winter heating subsidy for adult beneficiaries and running a free morning tea once a month, rotating between different cafes in Inverell to spread the business around town. The most recent morning tea drew 21 people, including volunteers, though numbers have been as low as eight in the past.
During school holidays, the club organises outings for beneficiary families, including trips to the cinema, the pool, ten-pin bowling and Green Valley Farm.
Ms Kitawal said the personal, ongoing contact beneficiaries receive is just as important as any financial support. Each beneficiary is assigned a Legatee, the club’s term for its volunteers, who acts as their first point of contact outside office hours.
“Their Legatee visits them, might take them out to morning tea, might visit them on their birthday with a small gift,” she said. “We do gifts for people on their decade birthdays, and of course all the children get a birthday gift from us.”
Legatees also visit beneficiaries living in aged care, and support those who are less mobile and rarely leave home.
Inverell Legacy also runs 11 rental accommodation units, open to the public and generally for people over 50. First preference goes to Legacy beneficiaries, with three currently living in the units, and second preference to veterans, with a further three in residence. Six of the 11 units are currently occupied by someone with a service connection.
The club’s biggest need right now is volunteers for its op shop, rather than for Legatee roles. Ms Kitawal said the club actually has plenty of people wanting to become Legatees, possibly because the role is less structured and less time-consuming.
The op shop, run by a team of just ten volunteers, is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 2.30pm and Saturday from 9am to 12pm. The club tries to keep at least three volunteers on each shift, but low numbers mean everyone is currently working a full shift.
“If we had more volunteers, we would open longer, and we’d be able to have two people out the back and two people out the front,” Ms Kitawal said.
She said volunteering at the shop offers more than just a chance to give back, with several volunteers forming friendships through their time there. The club also welcomes younger volunteers completing Centrelink mutual obligation hours or building retail experience, and has a partnership with North Haven, hosting supported employees in the shop. One past volunteer with a disability spent six months at the shop before moving into paid employment.
Outside of Legacy Week, local school students are also taking part in the club’s annual poster competition, with entries due on Sunday, 23 August and judging the following week. This year’s theme for high school students is “Legacy 2030 and beyond,” reflecting recent changes to Legacy’s constitution that have expanded who can be supported.
“It’s removed the operational service requirement, which means in theory there’s a lot more partners, widows and current family of veterans that we could be helping,” Ms Kitawal said.
The winning posters will be displayed at the shop and shared on Facebook, where they will also feature in the club’s Legacy Week posts.
“I’ll be very interested to see what the kids come up with,” Ms Kitawal said.
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