THE crew at Woolworths service station on Humffray Street had hoped to raise $650 for the CFA over a few weeks.
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With a bit of a smile and a dash of confidence, they managed to triple that target.
On Tuesday Woolworths station site manager Melinda Bell handed over a $2115.05 cheque to the Ballarat Fire Brigade.
The money will be spent on the redevelopment of the Barkly Street Station and fire fighting equipment.
Ms Bell said station attendants were nervous at first about asking customers to dig further into their pockets for a donation to the CFA. They were very pleasantly surprised, however, by the response.
“It was fantastic,” Ms Bell said.
“For some of the staff it was daunting at first but it is such a good cause we got over it very quickly.
“People did not mind when we asked them. Some actually apologised they couldn’t give more than small change but every little bit helped.”
Firefighters David Elms, Lee Webber and Trent Zuidland joined Ballarat Fire Brigade captain John Harris for the presentation.
Mr Harris said community donations allowed the fire brigade to get on with the business of putting out fires rather than spend time fundraising for extra equipment.
“CFA does give us some funding of course but community funding allows us to do a lot more.”
The fundraiser began on February 21 and finished on Sunday.