Townsville Airport has provided close to $8,000 in funding support to seven local community groups as part of its 2017 Community Benefit Fund.

The annual program is focused on supporting local community-based initiatives in the areas of health and wellbeing, safety, education, security, and environment.

A list of organisations and initiatives is provided below:

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Organisation                                                   Initiative

Twin Cities Leo Club                　　                 Promotion of 60,000 Hours of Community Service campaign

North Barrier SLSC                                          Purchase of a digital handheld radio in time for the 2017/2018 lifesaving season

Picnic Bay SLSC                                   　       Restock first aid supplies in time for the 2017/2018 lifesaving season

Hervey Range Community Association           Purchase automatic defibrillator

Townsville Zonta Metro                                    Provide birthing kits to women in need across Townsville, PNG and Nepal

Townsville Chinese Club                          　 　Piano repair for Townsville Chinese Community Choir

Vietnam Veterans Federation of Townsville　 Upgrade to lighting and floor resurfacing of the Townsville Men’s Shed

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Townsville Airport Chief Operating Officer Kevin Gill said the Community Benefit Fund had run for the past two years, allowing the airport to provide funding support to a significant number of local community groups at a grassroots level.

“We’re acutely aware of the uphill battle faced by many of these groups when it comes to funding,” he said.

“The initiatives are fantastic – they have a significant impact on the local community, and in the case of the surf lifesaving clubs, visitors to our region as well.

“The grants were typically based on $1,000 per initiative and it has been great to see just how far this money has gone.

“In selecting grant recipients, we endeavoured to select initiatives across a range of categories including safety, health and wellbeing, and arts and culture.”

Zonta Club of Townsville Metro has delivered more than 20,000 birthing kits to women in third world countries since 2006, and this year will be able to procure supplies for an additional 400 kits thanks to a grant from the Townsville Airport Community Benefit Fund.

“This grant will go directly to boosting the impact we are able to make for women in places such as PNG, where there often isn’t the capacity to provide good maternal health care for women delivering their baby. In some remote areas there may be no hospitals, health clinics, roads or trained midwives within hundreds of kilometres,” said Club President Suzy Dormer.

“This grant is extremely important to us as enables us to increase the impact we are able to make. We have found our volunteer partners who help to put the kits together are extremely keen and willing, our only limitation is the amount of money we are able to raise to procure the supplies for the kits. We are challenged each year to come up with ways to raise the money to support our work with projects, and we are so excited that this grant will enable us to increase our impact.”

Townsville Picnic Bay Surf Life Saving Club used their grant to restock their first aid supplies ahead of the lifesaving season.

“We patrol on The Strand and at Magnetic Island from September to May each year and we’ve been able to fully restock first aid supplies at both our clubhouses. We would usually have to fundraise for the supplies and purchase intermittently,” said Club President Darrin Bragg.

“Our goal is to provide safe and enjoyable beach visits for everyone and providing our life savers with the equipment they need is appreciated.”

The Community Benefit Fund is run by Townsville Airport’s parent company, Queensland Airports Limited (QAL), which also operates Gold Coast, Mount Isa and Longreach airports.

The 2017 Community Benefit Fund contributed close to $50,000 to 44 organisations across QAL’s four airports.

QAL also contributes approximately $650,000 each year in support of local community, business, environmental and tourism events in each of its regions and across Queensland.

The 2018 Community Benefit Fund will be launched early next year. Organisations interested in applying should stay tuned to Townsville Airport’s website and Facebook page for further updates.

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