ROXBURGH Park Football Club has announced a final tally of more than $27,000 raised at last month’s EDFL All Stars Bushfire Appeal event at Highgate.
The Magpies revealed a grand total of $27,879.29 raised on their Facebook page on Wednesday.
Roxburgh Park senior coach Michael Farrelly, the brainchild behind the initiative, gave thanks to everyone who put the day together.
“To get to that number is phenomenal and it’s a real credit to everyone that was involved,” Farrelly told essendondfl.com.au.
“It was really just a community-wide effort, from the people who came along and supported it, to the fans that came along and donated – it really was just a good community feel.”
The day featured two exhibition games featuring dozens senior players from 28 clubs across the EDFL, with Team Fire claiming victory over Team Smoke in both the men’s and women’s games.
Off the field, thousands of fans took part in an array of other entertainment that was on offer inside the venue, including CFA tributes, jumping castles, live music, a DJ, special auction items, food and drink trucks and special guests.
SportsCast Australia and the EDFL Match of the Day call team and were also on hand live streaming all of the action, while EDFL umpires officiated both games.
“It’s a pretty powerful message when you see some of the key names around the comp willing to put aside their club colours for a day and be a part of a united cause,” Farrelly said.
“It was pretty awesome, for not just the players but for the trainers, the water boys and coaching staff, to see everyone in a Fire or a Smoke guernsey.
“It was pretty cool to see that.”
All money raised is set to be split between multiple organisations that were greatly impacted by the devastating bushfires that engulfed many parts of the country over the summer, including the CFA and Wildlife Victoria.
“We’ll split it three ways at the moment, we’re just going through the exact channels and we want to be really specific about who we give it to,” Farrelly explained.
“We want to make sure we’re having the greatest effect on the people who it will have impacted in the past few months.
“We’re trying to (cover) the three different elements of wildlife, what we do which is community football and the families involved in community football, and then the CFA, who were also huge on the day and represented themselves really well with great numbers.
“They also spoke to our players, which was phenomenal.
“They did a really good job.”
