By Mikayla van Loon
Imagine winning a brand new car and then also imagine raising much needed funds for your football and netball club.
Well that’s exactly what Michael Hill, president of the Olinda Ferny Creek Football Netball Club just did and it all came down to a few raffle tickets.
For the first time last year, Mr Hill decided to enter the Toyota Good for Footy raffle by pairing with Ferntree Gully Toyota, where the profits from all tickets sold go directly to the club, with everyone who bought a ticket going into the race to win one of three cars.
“We saw it advertised last year, the Good for Footy, so we thought, during Covid it would be a good thing last year to enter and try and raise some much needed funds,” Mr Hill said.
“So this year, the aim was to jump on again and try and beat that mark and we ended up with $10,500. We’re really pleased with that, it thrashed what we had last year.”
In a normal football year, Mr Hill said it would take a lot of effort and major fundraisers like the functions to even come close to raising that amount of money.
“It takes a lot of coffees, raffle tickets, hotdogs and everything else to get $10,000. We could never get this sort of money together in this period of time without any cost to us, we’re very fortunate.”
Ferntree Gully Toyota marketing manager Mardi Scott said she was excited to support a local club that had been through a difficult two years of Covid-19 and storms.
“They’ve had a rough trot around here so it’s good to see and to be picked is pretty exciting, it’s our first ever,” she said.
This was the first time the Australia wide competition picked a local club from the Dandenong Ranges area and it couldn’t have come at a more deserving time.
“We got hit with the big storms, of course and we got hit pretty hard up there. A lot of people were pretty fragile. We’re coming out the other side now and the community has been very good,” Mr Hill said.
The Good for Footy program raised over one million dollars for local football clubs this year and Ms Scott said a number of clubs from the area spread across Boronia, Knox, Rowville and in The Hills took part.
“It supports the local community and we’re really behind our local community and many of the suburbs that we support, football is a big part of the community.”
Aside from the lockdowns, restrictions on community sport and the storms, Mr Hill said the Olinda Ferny Creek Football Club was able to achieve a lot over the last year but were particularly proud of the women’s team.
“The women were like a breath of fresh air. The women were amazing. They just improved so much and to even make the grand final was beyond their wildest dreams. They’re a great bunch of girls, so we’re looking forward to them going on next year.”
Mr Hill said now the club is looking forward to preseason, getting some normality back and having human interaction again.
“We’re tracking well but it’s more the mental side of things for a lot of people, the interaction and suddenly that is taken away so we’re missing that sort of thing.”
