With a smile on his face and a skip in his step, Aston Wenzke-Flynn proudly handed over an envelope to Mooroopna Education and Activity Centre manager Jan Phillips containing $500 to go towards helping a flood-affected community member.
The money was part of a fundraiser the eight-year-old organised with the help of his mother, Didi Wenzke, which saw a total of $1000 raised — $500 given to MEAC and $500 to Rochester Primary School.
After seeing the devastation the floods caused across the region, it was a conversation with his mum that prompted Aston to help.
“We sat outside and we were just talking about it and I said imagine coming home and not having your PlayStation and toys here, everything would be ruined. I said people are going to be needing a lot of help,” Ms Wenzke said.
“I was imagining everything that would have happened,” Aston said.
“I appreciated that nothing bad happened to our school and my home, and I thought they need money more than us.”
Ms Wenzke put a call out on Facebook letting people know about Aston’s idea to fundraise and asking for suggestions for places to donate to.
Before she knew it, she was overwhelmed with messages from both people wanting to donate and people commenting on the post with donation suggestions.
“When I showed Aston the list of suggestions, he said Rochester Primary School first and because Mooroopna was hit hard, we saw someone had said MEAC, so he chose that one too,” Ms Wenzke said.
“It was a full-time job that week with people messaging us.
“We appreciated everything they gave us. We even had one person donate $100.”
Between themselves, family and friends, they were also able to auction off several items including a cake, handmade Christmas decorations and a painting.
To celebrate, Ms Wenzke told Aston that if they beat their $500 goal, she’d shave her hair off and true to her word, she did — much to Aston’s surprise.
“She had a hoodie on and took it off and then I saw it (her shaved head) and I said put the hoodie back on,” Aston said.
“But I was proud she did it for charity.”
When the floods hit, MEAC became a hub for services in Mooroopna, and Ms Phillips saw first-hand the trauma and devastation the event caused in the community and was thankful for the donation Aston gave.
“He's just such a gorgeous little dude,” Ms Phillips said.
“He wanted to help someone specifically that had been affected by the floods and we have a community member who has lost everything, and we want to be able to just give them an extra added support.
“So we've had some other small donations, nothing as big as this, of course, which we've collected for this person so they can get some necessities.”