Together we can do it: a community rebuilds

Australia Day in 2013 saw much of Queensland ravaged by severe weather and flooding, with damages across the affected regions exceeding $2.4 billion. Approximately 7,500 residents of Bundaberg and patients at the Bundaberg Hospital were evacuated. Houses were washed away, essential infrastructure was destroyed and for some, the impact was even more devastating as they were still recovering from destructive floods in 2010 / 11. Overall about 4,040 houses and 620 businesses were impacted in the Bundaberg council area alone.

A donation of $5,000 from the John T Reid Charitable Trusts to RRR 2013 for immediate disaster relief enabled the project initiated by the Combined Churches of Bundaberg to utilise volunteers and donated materials, in partnership with the Salvation Army Tom Quinn Centre, to assist with rebuilding damaged homes in Bundaberg and the North Burnett Region.

Volunteers unite to rebuild the Burnett

The ‘Together We Can Do It’ project, later renamed the ‘Community Rebuild Group’ achieved extraordinary results in the 15 months that the group operated for. The funding provided by FRRR supported volunteers who come to Bundaberg to assist with the rebuild crisis following the 2013 flood and tornado disaster events.

A number of homes were identified as being unable to complete rebuilding activities due to insufficient insurance cover and / or insufficient flood assistance monies being available. Those identified as needing assistance were among the most vulnerable members of the community, being the elderly and young families who were not able to source alternative funding to return their homes to a safe and habitable standard.

Assistance was provided on a total of 64 home refurbishments, 50 of which were outside the scope of repair under the Structural Assistance Grant and would therefore not have been applicable for funding.

Project outcomes remarkable

Using volunteer labour and donated materials, the Community Rebuild Group was able to meet a gap in funding of $720,539 being the difference between the estimated value of repairs and funds available through the Structural Assistance Grant.

A total of 9,216 hours were given by volunteers to complete the rebuilds. This same number of hours would equates to $460,775 in contractor labour.

Terry Litchfield, Community Support Coordinator for Combined Churches of Bundaberg, said that the funding made available through the FRRR grant helped to get the project off the ground as it enabled the project to attract volunteers by providing subsidised fuel and meals, and ensuring a safe work environment by having safety equipment available.

“The volunteers were key to the project’s success. We employed a skill-specific and not high volume volunteering strategy, and I can say for certain that without the volunteers, the project could not have happened,” she said.

Two poignant observations made by Ms Litchfield in her final report to FRRR was that positive emotional impact of the work they completed was obvious as they witnessed the emotional change of those they assisted from one of hopelessness to finally being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel in their recovery from the flood.

Similarly, local community ownership of the project has enabled support to the community to extend beyond the life of the project. The partnership between Salvation Army and Combined Churches enabled rebuild support to continue through Tom Quinn Centre volunteers, and emotional support to continue through Combined Churches and partnerships they established through flood recovery, for affected members of the community.

The outcomes from the project were remarkable given the level of financial investment made by donors.  The impact of this project will have far reaching effects, with the State Government now looking at the formal processes and procedures established in collaboration with several agencies, as a model for community response in future disasters.