General News
31 March, 2026
Shaking tins this Good Friday
BEAUFORT and Avoca locals are once again being urged to dig deep this Good Friday as communities rally behind the annual Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal.
In Beaufort, collectors will be door knocking from 10am on Good Friday. Beaufort Good Friday Appeal agent David Gerrard said the town was ready to once again get behind the important cause. “This year we will be holding our door knock. Collectors will be out and about from 10am on Good Friday so please be ready and give generously,” he said. “Anyone with a couple of hours to spare and would like to help with the collection, please come to the new fire station about 9.30am.”
If collectors miss residents during the day, donations can still be dropped off at the fire station until about 3pm.
Mr Gerrard said there were also several other ways to support the appeal, including the Virtual Tin Shake, Beaufort’s local QR code and purple collection tins in local businesses.
Beaufort raised $17,114 in 2025, and this year’s efforts will also include a Beaufort Apex Club barbecue and Easter egg hunt, as well as the annual Easter hamper raffle. “This year the Beaufort Apex Club are holding a barbecue and Easter Egg Hunt in Memorial Park between 11am and 2pm, so bring the kids along for a bit of fun,” Mr Gerrard said.
Meanwhile in Avoca, collections will continue in familiar fashion, with volunteers making their way around town, the river flats and the caravan park.
Avoca organiser Brian Bearpark said the local CFA truck would also do laps of the main street in the hope of picking up extra donations. “We will be around town, we will be doing a drive through the river flat, caravan park,” he said.
Avoca raised $3,516 last year, but Mr Bearpark said cost-of-living pressures could affect this year’s total. “I think with the price of fuel it’s probably going to limit the amount of people coming through, but we will see what happens,” he said.
Mr Bearpark also said the Avoca CFA continued to face frustrations with permit restrictions preventing collectors from fundraising at the town’s main intersection.
In 2025, the brigade encountered issues obtaining permission to collect there, and the same problem has persisted into 2026. “It’s a sticking point,” he said. “One stipulation of the permit process states you cannot collect on an intersection without traffic lights. Because of that one little line it wipes out a lot of rural collection points.”
Mr Bearpark said the site, despite being controlled by stop signs rather than traffic lights, had been used safely for more than 35 years. “It annoys us. It’s bureaucratic people in their glass buildings in Melbourne looking on a map, ‘There’s no traffic lights there, no,’” he said. “We are community-based, we aren’t just fighting fires, we do stuff like this. It’s all fundraising for the Royal Children’s Hospital.”