Fruits of stall lend a hand to farmers
A TRIO of big-hearted siblings used a Geelong Cats game-day market stall on Saturday to help raise money for drought-affected farmers.
Martin Neylon, 4 — with the help of brother Tomas, 6, and sister Hanna, 7 — runs a fruit and vegetable stall on Cats match days, giving fresh produce to football fans for free or in exchange for a donation.
Mum Inger Neylon, a dietitian, said the family had been operating the healthy stall all footy season.
“As the games have progressed, people expect Martin will be there and they bring some coins for him,” she said.
On Saturday, the kids decided to dress up as farmers and donate the takings from their Noble St stall — which experiences plenty of foot traffic — to drought relief.
“They always donate 10 to 20 per cent of what they make, and after they learned about the farmers’ situation at school on Friday, they said, ‘Why don’t we donate it all?’,” Ms Neylon said.
The stall is typically run out of Ms Neylon’s pocket, but on Saturday it was aided by a $50 voucher from Coles supermarkets to help buy the produce.
In a matter of hours, pre and post game, the children raised $257.
Coles, which made a commitment to match the amount raised by the children, will bump that up to a total of $514.