HUNTER businesses have banded together to send nine semi trailers of Queensland hay – valued at a combined $85,500 – to farmers in the Upper Hunter and Northern NSW.
McDonald Jones Homes Hunter Region General Manager Matthew Edwards said his organisation had organised through Rural Aid’s Buy a Bale campaign to send three semi trailers to Scone and surrounds.
The McCloy Group has organised three semi trailers for the Tamworth area and Wests and the Knights have combined to send three semi trailers to locations across the two regions.
“We want to give back to the Upper Hunter and the areas that have supported us as a builder over the years,” Mr Edwards said.
“We have sub contractors and clients in that area who have families and communities around them that have been going through major difficulties because of the drought and lack of rain.
“They’re struggling to ensure their income and livelihood under these kinds of conditions.”
The Scone-bound trucks left on Saturday and the others will depart in the coming week.
The organisations paid $9500 for each of the semi trailer’s loads and transport costs.
Rural Aid volunteers also collected cash donations for farmers at the Knights last home game.
Five bales each worth $20 feed one cow for one week, $52.50 buys a supermarket hamper and $250 delivers 11,500 litres of water to a farm within 100 kilometres of the collection point.