Recently a neighbour put a post on our local intranet sharing her story of hardship and asking if anyone out there might be able to help her finish her backyard by Christmas time.

She is a single mum with a 14 year old son who has a very serious heart condition – serious enough and scary enough that it prohibits her from working. As a Homewest tenant she is given a house, but only the bare essentials of a backyard.

It seems like a whole bunch of her neighbours have seen it as an oportunity to develop a bit more community spirit by pitching in and helping her out. Mike Russell from our team has been soliciting support from local businesses and I have been communicating and co-ordinating all the people who have offered to help.

So far Mike and others have managed to get:
– lroll on lawn supplied and laid
– retic supplied and installed
– free bobcat work
– free brickpaving from a local guy
– free electrical work
– a stack of chicken kebabs and breast for the party at the end
– a carton of beer
and a few other bits and pieces.

We have some very generous local businesses and neighbours! I think we are all blown away by people’s kindness.

On Saturday Mike, Mark, Darren, Wal and myself laid about 100m of brick paving and started the transformation. It has been great to see the difference the work has made so far and to see the encouragement it is to Jackie, the woman who lives there.

If you’d like to see the ongoing development of the backyard then you can check out Jackie’s photo album here. I reckon it’ll be a great ‘photo story’.

The funny thing is that one of our neighbours has been ringing the media to share the story and possibly bring some good advertising for those kind enough to donate their services – but the bastards don’t want to know.

Doesn’t that make you mad?