A group of Vietnamese Buddhist monks from Sydney donated $100,000 to flood relief in Lismore. It was a particularly welcoming gesture because the State Government had done fuck all during this entire crisis.
Lismore City Council Mayor Steve Krieg said in a Facebook post shared on Sunday morning the group visited the city on Wednesday with a $100,000 cheque.
He said they were staying in a monastery at Tullera. It’s a small regional town and a 16-minute drive away from Lismore.
Krieg called the monks’ actions “unbelievable generosity”.
“You never know who you are going to meet and what absolute blessings that you will get,” he said via the ABC.
“We went up to the evacuation centre and they met with evacuees and gave them all a small cash donation as well.”
Fellow noted volunteer legends Melbourne Sikhs drove a huge 34 hours to feed the flood-affected communities in Lismore and other New South Wales towns last month. The group prepared giant pots of curry in an industrial kitchen at the Sikh temple in Woolgoolga.
“We are a team of four now. But more volunteers will be flown in during the coming days when the airports are open,” Jaswinder Singh from Sikh Volunteers Australia told the ABC.
“Volunteering is part of Sikh culture. It gives us a higher purpose and meaning. It doesn’t matter if I don’t sleep for a few days, the feeling I get from helping others is pure peace and calmness.”
45 Fijian abattoir workers also volunteered to help save aged care residents and clean up post-flood. Many of the volunteers — who were here as part of the Pacific Labour Scheme (PALM) — only arrived in Lismore three weeks before they volunteered.
Shoutout to the incredible volunteers who have gone out of their way to support flood victims, check in on them and their well-being and safely transport them to evacuation centres. They’re the true heroes of this crisis.
Lismore locals drove 700km to dump a fuckload of flood-damaged crap in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s front yard in Sydney on March 21st. A group of religious climate change activists then held a candlelit vigil outside on behalf of the residents of Lismore, Byron Bay and the larger Norther Rivers region.
