A SMALL team of dedicated volunteers are coming to terms with the decision to close down Swan Hill’s beloved Pioneer Animal Nursery Incorporated (PANI).
Di Martin, a committee member and volunteer of three years, has watched the nursery slide deeper into financial hardship as funding opportunities evaporated and the work just got too much for the skeleton crew.
Ms Martin started volunteering at PANI to support her daughter Ashleigh, who has a disability. She believed the nursery was a great way for her daughter to gain valuable life skills such as customer service as well as animal husbandry.
“Initially there was a manager here, but once they left and were not replaced it got very difficult,” she said.
“We are not business people, we are just parents who wanted to help provide something wonderful for our children.
“We had tremendous support from the volunteers who could help over the years, but unfortunately it’s not enough to continue. It’s a huge job, it’s 365 days a year.
“We have called for volunteer assistance for some time and we just found peoples limited availability made it hard to schedule, the gap in filling shifts would always fall back to us.”
The program has been held together by Ms Martin and one other committee member, both of whom were doing it for their adult disabled children. In the end, the labour of love just got to much.
“It’s not just us who are tired, it’s the kids also. There is a huge amount of work associated with running an animal nursery.
“The feeding, the cleaning, the sourcing of suppliers and replacing animal stocks, it never ends. We go home everyday knowing there is still more work to do.”
For more on this story grab a copy of Friday’s Guardian (October 23).
