By Dongyun Kwon and Jamie Padgett
An old couple, who have devoted themselves to the Healesville/Yarra Glen community, received the 2024 Casey Community Volunteer Award on Saturday 15 June.
Mario and Maree Campitelli have volunteered as a part of the St Brigid’s Catholic Church for over 40 years helping supply groceries for people in need and taking people to hospital visits along with special activities for Christmas such as 100 hampers and 50 Christmas meals.
Through Covid-19, they delivered 100 meals a week to different people in the area.
Maree said they’ve gotten a lot of support from a lot of different people.
“We do bread runs every week that we take bread to people’s homes and also deliver care packages,” she said.
“The Wild Grains Bakehouse has been very good, they give us the bread.”
When the storm hit the Yarra Valley during Covid-19, the couple set up a stall to provide people with groceries that they got from the local Coles.
“When people came to get the stuff, they got a lot of stuff for their neighbours, they distributed them to other people as well,” Mario said.
Their volunteering journey has grown from visiting people as part of the church about 40 years ago, through which they could find out the needs of different people.
The couple didn’t expect the award at all because their kids made the nomination secretly.
When their name was called at the award, they said they were “shocked”.
“We went there that morning. It was Mario’s 91st birthday and the kids were here the night before, saying we’re going out for breakfast,” Maree said.
“I’m not a breakfast person at all and my daughter said “Dad, I want to go for a soccer raffle”, so we went there and when we walked in there, we saw the stage and all the tables and people and we were like ‘what is going on here’,” Mario said.
“My daughter said she’s getting an award for being the oldest soccer player because she’s 51 and still playing soccer,” Maree said.
“Once we got in there, we saw a friend of ours and we figured out it was a Casey volunteering award.”
The couple said volunteering is everything to them which makes their life and who they are, and they are now trying to pass the joy of volunteering down to the young generation.
“Now we are making pathways with the school [St Brigid’s Primary School in Healesville],” Maree said.
“When we do things like the lunch, we have school children help us to teach them the values of giving and hospitality to others.
“They’re beautiful, polite and well-mannered.”
