By Violet Li
Lindsay and Lavinia Tharle were working flat out at what they had been recognised for when a national honour knocked on their door.
The Cranbourne couple was among the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) recipients in the 2024 Australia Day Honours List, awarded for their decades of community service.
With no time to consume and celebrate the news, the couple threw themselves into a fundraising barbecue for kids needing education at the Dandenong Valley Car Show on Australian Day and another charity event by Freemasons Victoria just one day later.
When they finally had time to sit down to savour the recognition, they were taken by surprise by the sheer number of little good things they had been engaged with since the 1970s.
“We do a lot of fundraising, a lot of barbecues, and a lot of catering for good shows,” Lavinia said.
“Whoever nominated us gave us a long list of what we’ve done over the years. It goes back a long time ago.
“We didn’t even realise people would’ve taken notice, but obviously, they were taking notice. It was quite a surprise.”
Married for 60 years, the couple has three children, aged 59, 57, and 54.
In retrospect, the voluntary act accidentally started around 55 years ago when their children went to primary school.
The couple used to have cooking stalls at school fares to help purchase sporting equipment.
“You just got into it, and you just do it. It just sort of happens,” Lavinia said.
She joked that one of their three sons, who lived in Darwin now, said they were never home.
The couple did all the same volunteer activities together.
They knitted premature baby hats for the Narre Warre Country Fire Authority in the 1970s.
They’ve been looking after the animals at the Dandy Show for nearly 40 years, making sure they are safe, watered, and fenced.
They’ve volunteered at the Breakfast Club at Kooweerup Secondary College for over 20 years. They put on barbecues at Christmas time for all the students every year.
They are now doing collections for the Uncle Bob’s Club for the Royal Children’s Hospital.
Looking back to their community dedication and fundraising efforts, Lavinia said it was the friendship that kept her going.
“The main thing to get out of it is the people that we’ve met through doing voluntary work,” she said.
Lindsay agreed with her.
“The big thing is you meet so many lovely people,” he said.
“Just looking at people put money in the charity makes you feel good for humanity.”
He said what also motivated them in the past five decades was pure passion.
“They are things that we just like doing. If you didn’t like doing it, you wouldn’t do it, would you?” he said.
“That’s what keeps you young.”
The award no doubt brought serendipity to their lives.
“The loveliest thing about it [the award] is the amount of people that we haven’t heard of for years who have seen it in the paper or heard about it, and they’ve rang up and congratulated us,” Lindsay said.
“You don’t look for congratulations, but it’s nice to get them.”
The couple believed nothing had changed after the award and they would keep contributing to the community as long as they could.
Though they said this should be a relaxing week, they had already planned to head out to a big sports meeting at Akoonah Park days later and Warrnambool for a charity event on the weekend.
