The Victorian State Emergency Service (SES) has benefited from a fundraising charity auction at Central Victoria Livestock Exchange (CVLX) Ballarat on Tuesday.
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The auction of 22 lambs across four pens went better than expected with $6,750 raised with support from local stock agents and additional funds raised via a sausage sizzle at the saleyards.
Ballarat SES controller Gordon Hicks said the service had many challenges posed by flooding and raised funds will be invested in essential equipment.
"This is a huge donation for us, especially coming out of COVID where we haven't been able to do much fundraising," he said.
"We've got equipment that needs to be bought very soon which will go into some new vehicles that will turn up very shortly too.
"So this has come at the right time."
Mr Hicks the funding has taken some pressure off some members that were under some stress "due to all the stuff we are doing at the moment".
"La Nina and its effects has had a big impact... and even this week for example - so far we've still gone out to some calls, with volunteers starting around lunchtime and some not going home until 10 o'clock.
"I think out of those, we had around 12 calls, but when we have had some severe storm cells come through we could be called out to up to 500 jobs, and we've had several of those cases already,"
He said the SES were always looking to add more volunteers, and anyone in Ballarat should get in contact if they were interested in being a part of the team.
CVLX manager Jeff Paull said he was delighted CVLX could play a role in supporting the SES.
"The importance of the SES was felt during the recent flood event, so we are very pleased to have been able to place a spotlight on them today while raising much-needed funds to help contribute to ongoing resourcing," Mr Paull said.
"We set a $5,000 target and are happy to have exceeded this by raising more than $6,750 for the SES.
"Thank you to local agents for their donations and to everyone who attended to make this morning's event a success."
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