Bickies for a cause

The idea has been a winner in the outback before — and Margaret Murfit knew it would work again.

“Why don’t we collect biscuits?” Mrs Murfit suggested to fellow members of the Walkaway Country Women’s Association when they met to see how they could assist drought-affected folk in the Gascoyne and Murchison areas.

The Hay for WA Run for parched farms and stations will leave the Esperance area on the Australia Day weekend.

The Walkaway women were told to have whatever they collected in Meekatharra by then, so the biscuits could “hitch a ride” on trucks.

A pre-Christmas call went out to those in the Mid West: “we need cooked and bought biscuits”.

The cute hall in Walkaway which houses the CWA was overloaded with produce last Thursday, when ladies met to see what their call had produced.

On a whiteboard — standing underneath the honour board of the 88-year-old organisation — were five “must-dos”.

“Check the biscuits. Are they sealed — bag, Glad wrap? Is there a G’day note inside? Is the box/tin sealed? Is there a 2020 Hay for WA Run sticker on the outside?”

Ladies lined the biscuit-filled table as the instruction came: “Check them and then send down this end to the packers. We need more packers. When they’re packed, they go over there.

“We need a combination of commercial and homemade biscuits in each box.”

And there wasn’t only tucker for humans.

Lots of dog and cat biscuits were sent.

“It’s been great to see what people do in a time of need for others,” Walkaway CWA secretary and co-ordinator of the project Miranda Woolridge said.

“If there are enough biscuits, some will go to communities on the way to the stations.”

Mrs Murfit said when she was “much younger” she and her husband delivered biscuits to the outback as part of a frontier service run by the Uniting Church.

“This makes a big difference, this is about keeping communities together because they are dying,” she said.

And don’t be fooled into thinking the ladies will be enjoying a rest.

Mrs Woolridge thinks they may be able to assist folk in Norseman and along the Nullarbor, who have been affected by fires.