A LOCAL service club is looking for community members to volunteer to keep alive a popular food van that has become a fixture of local markets and community events.
Barmera Lions Club president Josie Spriggs said the club’s doughnut van, which draws hundreds of customers at the regular Barmera Main Street Markets and other events, is seeking new volunteers to assist with cooking and serving.
“All of our members are getting older and a few of them are now no longer able to work in the doughnut van, so we’re short of people to do the cooking and the mixing,” she said.
“We’re already using volunteers from the Scouts and the Guides for service, but it’s the more strenuous bit – the mixing and tipping the mixture into the dispenser – that you have to be reasonably fit to do.
“We’re down to about three or four members who can actually do that, and if they’re not available on a particular day when the van is going out we are pretty stuck.
“We would very much like some new volunteers to come along and help us out.”
Ms Spriggs said non-members were also welcome to assist with operating the doughnut van, which has been running for a number of decades.
“We would like for them to join Lions but if they’d just like to help us by volunteering on a roster system that would be great us well – we call them ‘Friends of Lions’,” she said.
“If anyone wants to volunteer in that capacity, it would be very welcome.”
About 70 per cent of money raised from the doughnut van is donated throughout the Riverland area, with the Girl Guides and Scouts also receiving financial support for their efforts.
“It’s our major fundraiser, and the funds that we raise are distributed around the community,” Ms Spriggs said.
“The majority of it is distributed to local charities and, without the doughnut van, we’re going to be very limited in the amount of money we can give out to local clubs and things like that.
“We very much appreciate the support we get, because we do get tremendous support from the locals and tourists who come and buy doughnuts from us.
“In the next few weeks we will start taking it to the junior netball as well, which is another regular thing we do over the winter months.”
For more information or to volunteer, call John Hughes 0417 791 034 or Peter Marks 0427 898 770.