Shovel-loads of spirit around town

Sites in Echuca and Moama have each had hundreds of volunteers there throughout the day, filling as many sandbags as possible.

And when the hessian bags run out, the efforts don’t stop. People have been filling anything that can to act as a substitute, including pillowcases, dog and stock food bags and plastic bags.

From early in the morning through to well after the sun has set, the hub has been operating relentlessly at full capacity.

Anthony ‘Noddy’ O’Reilly was at the sandbag station at Kerferd St in Echuca. He has been at the site throughout the flood crisis and praised the massive community effort taking place.

“We are trying to fill a massive amount of sandbags as they come in very quickly,” Noddy said.

“We had 6000 empty sandbags with all the volunteers here doing a wonderful job, we filled those in a bit over two hours. Everyone is flat-out.

“We started chasing bags to fill. We ran out of pillowcases yesterday and we have been using dog and stock feed bags now.”

“The community is fantastic. When the chips are down, everyone gets in and has a go.”

Sam Nguyen and his sister, Linh, were two of the hundreds of people at Kerferd St shovelling sand into as many bags as possible.

The pair had been helping at the sandbagging station for three days and said it was all about doing what they could to help as many others in the community as possible.

“We want to help our community,” Linh said.

“More and more people keep coming out here, that’s for sure. It gets busier and busier every day, which is great to see.

“It is a terrifying time for the community, but we do what we can to help. It is all we can do, really.”

Sam is a physiotherapist at Echuca Regional Health, and he has been coming to the sandbagging station after work to help out.

“There is plenty to do here. We are in a pretty safe area, but we want to help others too,” Sam said.

“Everyone wants to get around it, the community spirit is great.”