Group delivers helping hand

SWAN Hill and District Arthritis Self Help Group are helping more than just themselves with a donation towards Swan Hill District Health’s planned MRI machine.

Group president Margaret Carrison handed over a cheque for $800 at SHDH’s Community Rehabilitation Centre last week to a group of grateful staff.

Ms Carrison said the group’s 13 members went above and beyond for their fundraising efforts.

“Our main fundraising source is through a spinning wheel at Swan Hill’s RSL club,” she said.

“Most of our members take down things like flowers, homecrafts, home-made cooking and more as prizes.

“We have a big door prize as people come in, that they can buy raffle tickets for – last time we had a choice of seven prizes winners could chose from.

“It’s really good to see that a smaller group of people can still raise this much money, and a certain amount of the money also goes down to Melbourne to an arthritis cause there.”

Ms Carrison said the group decided to donate their money to support the local health services.

“I had recently seen in The Guardian that this was something the hospital wanted,” she said.

“We all know that this is something that is desperately needed.

“We may all need an MRI at some stage, and it’s definitely something that is needed for people with arthritis.”

Ms Carrison said all were welcome to join the group and be a part of the fun.

“We’re a fairly social group,” she said.

“We often go out somewhere for coffees, and we have big Christmas in July celebrations at my house. We all just pitch in and do our part.

“We have our meeting once a month, and we always try to get a guest speaker along.

“They usually speak to us about something in the medical field, but not always about arthritis.”

The group meet at the Swan Hill Club at 1.30pm on the third Wednesday of each month and meet on the month’s first Friday at Swan Hill Specialist School for morning tea.