boost to clubs

Collie’s TW Power Services has donated $43,000 to a range of community groups and sporting organisations in the town, presenting the grants at a function on Friday. The donations were shared between nine different groups which received between $2500 and $7000 each. Head of maintenance Liam Saunders said money for the grants were raised during the Collie Power Station shutdown by subcontractors and TW Power Services and were used as an incentive for workers to maintain a safe working environment as the station managed COVID-19 protocols. “The program provides incentives for our subcontractors to raise their awareness of the importance of safety during the outage by setting them tasks,” Mr Saunders said. “This is a great initiative and we are very much appreciative of every one who contributed. “Hopefully, this goes a long way to benefit these groups and clubs.” The outage at the station lasted four months, with 700 workers attending the site during the period. “Our number one goal was a safer workplace,” Mr Saunders said. Recipients included the Collie Eagles Football Club, Collie Junior Soccer Club, Collie BMX Club and Collie Men’s Shed among others. “This is just an amazing donation, the Men’s Shed has been going since 2016, but we had really grown as an organisation in the last few months before COVID-19 affected us as it did everyone else and we were wondering where funding was going to come from,” Men’s Shed member Ian Bushell said. Collie-Preston MLA Mick Murray attended the function and commended the fundraising efforts made by the workers and subcontractors. “We are working very hard to make sure we keep our industries alive and well because they support the whole of the South West,” he said. “It’s great to see Eastern States companies contributing to our economy and to the people of Collie. “The thrill I get out of this is the money going back into the different associations and the recognition of the hard work of the volunteers.”