By Brendan Rees
A group of woodworkers in Cranbourne have been busy making toys for the past year to help children fight cancer.
It may not be Santa’s workshop but the group who work in community shed at Casey Fields Lifestyle Village raised an impressive $3000 from selling wooden toys at craft markets in Mornington and Red Hill.
The group donated every cent to the Monash Children’s Hospital Cancer Centre on Tuesday, 23 January.
A further $3000 was donated by the Lifestyle Village Corporation who matched the woodworking group’s donation.
Woodworker team member Kevin Sparrow said the group were able to triple their donation after donating $1000 last year to the Monash Hospital Cancer Centre.
“We aim to continue raising money for future donations to the same charity,” he said.
Monash Health Foundation Acting Director Matthew Hannan said Monash Children’s Hospital was delighted to receive the gift.
“Knowing these funds have been raised through the sale of handcrafted toys is a wonderful gesture of generosity,” he said.
“The donation will go towards buying toys, crafts and other supplies for children in the Monash Children’s Hospital Cancer Centre.”
The woodworkers group was formed in 2015 and most of the tools are supplied by the woodworking group with help from Lifestyle management.
“We get together for a few hours on Thursday mornings and make, and help each other with ideas on how to best make wooden items out of reclaimed wood,” said Mr Sparrow.
“In 2016, over a cuppa in our shed, during one of our working sessions, we decided that we wanted to donate to a children’s charity and the consensus in the group was it had to be a local children’s charity.”
