March 30th, 2020Big contributions lead to honour roll
IT’S Loretta Little’s big contributions to her community that have seen her inducted into Hepburn Shire’s Heather Mutimer Women’s Honour Roll.
Her history of volunteering began a long time ago in Melbourne, where she lived before moving to Daylesford about 12 years ago.
Back in 2000 Loretta helped set up a group called Welcome, to take care of Afghan refugees coming into Australia, then she went on to help set up a group with a base in Afghanistan assisting women and children among others.
“It’s the sort of thing I like to do,” Loretta explained. “I’m not an activist, I’m just a person who likes things to happen and to make sense. All you need to do is find a group of people to work with you. Then you can achieve what you set out to do.”
And that’s exactly what happened when Loretta moved to Daylesford.
“The first thing I thought was it astounded me that Daylesford didn’t have a cinema – so I got a really good group, a really wonderful group of volunteers together, got the locals involved, and we literally built a 100-seat cinema and that ran for four or five years as purely volunteer and became a necessary part of the community.”
Then came The 5000 Club.
“I was running The 5000 Club for nine years, and the volunteers were what actually made it. I was the organiser, but they were absolutely wonderful.”
The 5000 Club – which gets its name from when Jesus gave out the loaves and the fishes, although the club isn’t a religious one – was held every Friday for people who otherwise wouldn’t be sitting with good food and great company.
“There’s a lot of organisation below the surface and it just appears to happen, but that’s how we want it to look.”
Loretta has always had a good association with cooking and providing food for people – one of her daughters is a trained chef and Loretta also used to volunteer in the kitchen and dining area at Sacred Heart Mission.
“We were feeding about 350 people every day so to come up here and set up a group that catered for about 40 people was very simple really.”
It’s one of the reasons she’s such a worthy recipient of the honour – even if Loretta herself wasn’t so sure when she found out.
“I just said thank you very much, really. My reaction was – I was very honoured to be chosen in that way. But there are so many people in this area that do so many good things for people.
“It’s all about volunteering and what you gain from it – I say to people about volunteering that it’s a selfish occupation because you get a lot more from it than you give to it.”
Sadly, at the last committee meeting, the volunteers decided that the risk of continuing this year was too great and The 5000 Club has been closed due to Covid-19.
But Loretta herself isn’t exactly taking time out.
“I’m just looking around now and thinking ‘what else needs to be done?’”
“I was running The 5000 Club for nine years, and the volunteers were what actually made it. I was the organiser, but they were absolutely wonderful.”
– Loretta Little
Words: Kate Taylor | Image: Kyle Barnes (Stock photo)
