They pray for hay

By Kath Gannaway
In a collaboration between local farmers, the Pakenham Lions Club and Abrehart Transport from Pakenham, the relief effort has seen hundreds of bales of hay heading out of Yarra Glen over the past week.
Dixons Creek property owner Sonia Lee Inglese, who was instrumental in organising the project, said the response to their original call for hay and transport had been fantastic.
“Hay came from all around the Yarra Valley as well as Kinglake, Yea and Mansfield,” she said.
“There were farmers in the Black Saturday bushfires who lost everything they owned and still kindly donated their hay.”
Within hours of the call going out pledges of hundreds of bales of hay flooded in.
An email trail about the project led to Graham Cockerall of the Pakenham Lions Club who came on board to help get the hay transported.
On Friday, Ms Inglese’s neighbours helped Pakenham driver Alan ‘Wally’ Fricke load the first truck out with 46 bales of hay.
Abrehart Transport owner, Garry Abrehart, was back on the job on Monday loading up the fifth truckload.
“It’s a great feeling to be involved,” he said. “We have spoken to quite a few of the farmers up there who have had their cattle standing in water for so long they are unable to milk them.
“They have no income, but they still have to feed their herds and so they are very, very thankful,” he said.
Ms Inglese said she wanted to express her personal thanks for the support for the project to everyone who had donated hay, services, money and petrol vouchers.
“The amazing generosity of people has enabled us to keep supporting farmers in the flooded areas of Victoria who are still very much in need of assistance to feed their animals,” she said.
Anyone who can help can contact Ms Inglese on 0417 396 109 or Evan Davidson from Country Emergency Response Group on 0411 533 248.