A look of amazement and then a huge smile passed across the face of Dubbo-based Camp Quality representative Anne Bassett’s face as she learnt the charity was receiving an $11,000 donation.
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Muller Park Tennis Club made the surprise gift at its Brisbane Street home on Friday.
The sporting group has long supported the charity that helps children impacted by cancer, but this year it increased its donation about fourfold.
Mrs Bassett was thrilled to accept the donation on behalf of Camp Quality.
“For so many years it’s been $2000, $2500, it crept up to $3000, which is a fantastic donation for a club that’s fairly small in a country town,” she said.
“And today they’ve given us $11,000 which is mind-blowing really, because I know of the benefits to the kids.
...today they’ve given us $11,000 which is mind-blowing really, because I know of the benefits to the kids.
- Camp Quality representative Anne Bassett
“There will be so many more kids able to go to camp and looked after in their illness for the family.
“It’s just amazing.”
Camp Quality has a range of programs to help children growing up with cancer, or who have a family member with the illness.
It is renowned for its camps, with young people from the western region among those to attend.
“The children and their siblings are taken to camp to give them a break away from the home routine, the medical routine,” Mrs Bassett said.
“The camps have a medical staff, they have a doctor and nurses, so they are being looked after medically, but they get to have fun, do things they may not get the opportunity to do other times.”
Committed members of the tennis club have put their energies into supporting Camp Quality’s work in the western region for almost two decades.
Its annual Grahame Priest and Warren McLennan Memorial Charity Day, honouring two club stalwarts who lost battles with cancer, has been a significant fundraiser.
Life member Margaret Rootes, who served as treasurer this year, told the Daily Liberal the club decided to add to the sum raised at this year’s charity day to make the $11,000 donation.
She said she was proud the club had given more than $60,000 to Camp Quality in the past 18 years.