Supporting Eltham's Volunteer Fire Brigade is now as easy as buying a loaf of bread, with the launch of a new fundraising promotion in the Eltham Four Square.
Michael Jago, the store's owner-operator, says that as people tend to carry less loose change nowadays, "it isn't that people don't want to give, but often they don't have the coin to drop into a collecting tin".
With this in mind, the new promotion lets customers add the purchase of a "gift card" to their shopping. The gift card is a donation card, with all money raised going directly to the Eltham brigade to pay for new equipment.
Chief fire officer Dave Waite says that just as technology has changed, "vehicles have changed and that means the gear we need has changed when it comes to rescue work".
Dave says that small rural areas, such as Eltham, tend to struggle to afford new equipment as "a lot of what we do isn't funded through the Fire Service Levy". He adds that ACC is "keen for us to carry out extractions as quick and as safe as we can to potentially reduce rehabilitation time but they do not contribute to our service".