Disaster Relief Australia and employees from NAB are on the ground in Rochester, helping residents with the flood recovery effort.
The volunteers arrived in town on Wednesday, February 28, for the inspection phase, which concluded the same day.
During the three-week visit, DRA volunteers are putting in the hard yards while NAB employees came up from Melbourne on Friday to lend a hand.
Rochester Secondary College’s new principal, Matt Koubroutas, was grateful for the additional help the volunteers are providing the school.
“We’re grateful that the school community has been fortunate to receive additional help from Disaster Relief Australia and volunteers from NAB,” he said.
“The students are excited to see the volunteer teams come to our school, as the school community understands and appreciates that they are volunteers who have donated their time to help us with the recovery.”
NAB executive, retail — Victoria and Tasmania Mil Kairouz was at the school as the large group dispersed to work at various sites around town.
“We have just over 100 people here (on Wednesday) and over the next few days,” Mr Kairouz said.
“It’s important to us the NAB’s partnership with Disaster Relief Australia. We were proud that we could get out here to Rochester and help the town recover.”
NAB executive sustainability Jessica Forrest said she looked forward to the DRA volunteers and NAB employees working together to assist Rochester residents.
“We know it can take a long time for communities to recover from disasters, and that’s why our partnership with DRA is so important to help communities like Rochester and others across Australia recover from disasters, now and into the future,” Ms Forrest said.
“We’ll have many helping hands in Rochester, with over a hundred volunteers from the NAB Prep Recovery Crew on the ground to help alongside Disaster Relief Australia with important repairs.”
The DRA is a veteran-led volunteer organisation comprised of former and serving defence force personnel.
The NAB Prep’s partnership grants $1 million plus in-kind support to bolster DRA’s community and corporate volunteer capacity over the next two years.
More than 200 volunteers from DRA and NAB in total will be on the ground in Rochester to help recover from significant flooding during this period.
Volunteers will repair three schools, local homes and other infrastructure.
In addition to DRA’s recovery operation, the NAB Prep has also committed $100,000 to Rochester Community House to support projects that will help young people recover following the floods.