Heroes walk among us. In everyday life, there are men and women in our community who have made the ultimate commitment to serve our country within our military forces. This service to our country comes in many forms and differs from different decades. They come from many areas within the defence force, ranging from support personnel at home and in foreign countries, right through to front-line soldiers and officers fighting wars and keeping the peace, most of the time in extreme and harsh environments.
We believe all to be heroes, regardless of rank or which force represented. These brave men and women have contributed wholeheartedly to preserve our freedom and the way of life that we know.
As a company, Brown and Son Plumbing for many years has provided a discount on labour to both serving and retired military personnel. A gesture of our appreciation, this has been a positive experience for some of our staff but didn’t quite have the effect we thought it would, when we implemented it many years ago.
Fast forward to October 2021, when we sat down to a team meeting. We asked ourselves, “What else can we do? What else can we do to show our appreciation? There must be more.”
We are “Digging for Diggers” one of the team said. Whenever we break the earth or dig a hole in our daily work and jobs, we donate. We can put a small portion of our jobs away each time we do anything that involves any digging.” Wow!, what a proposal. What a great idea! And our program was born from here. For two years we kept this to ourselves, within our team, while gradually raising enough money to do something to make a difference.
We came across Andrew Russel Veteran Living (ARVL) A program developed by RSL Care SA and provides any ex-service person in SA who is homeless or at risk of homelessness opportunities to access appropriate and affordable housing solutions and practical support, that enable veterans to generate positive accommodation outcomes for themselves. We knew straight away that we wanted to get involved with this amazing program, and it reflects the fundamental core values of the RSL, from way back in 1918.
We made contact with Ricky, the program manager and let him know what we were doing and he was happy to have us on board.
From the start of our journey raising money within our Digging for Diggers program, we didn’t know exactly where it would lead us, but knew it would be something with substance…, something tangible, something real for the veterans. When Ricky came to us with a proposal to refurbish the old dusty storage shed into a new meeting area/ coffee house and Laundry at the Campbelltown ARVL village, we were straight on the front foot to make it happen. The project was a success and at the end, Ricky even arranged a reveal for us to get to know the resident Veterans over a coffee and BBQ breakfast.
From here, from these humble beginnings converting this storage shed, the sky is the limit with what we can achieve, and we are very much looking forward to getting our teeth into the next project and building on this in the future.
In future projects, we will be looking to get other organisations and businesses involved, so we can do even more. If you like what you see and would like to be a part of this, please make contact with us for a discussion.
For more information, please call us on 8367 8383 or email
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