Murray driven to lend a helping hand
Murray Leaning was ‘‘shocked and humbled’’ by the local hero award, saying he had never done any charitable work expecting a reward.
‘‘That’s the way I was brought up, if you look over the fence and your neighbour needs a hand, you lend a hand,’’ he said.
‘‘I can’t afford to give money to heaps of organisations every month, but I figure I can use the skills that I have,’’ he said.
Over the past 30 years he said he had done volunteer work as a quizmaster for charity groups, as a sports coach, and in his role now as a liaison between companies and people for charity building projects.
Leaning has also been given reign to contribute to charity through his work at Mitre 10 Mega.
‘‘All I do now is community stuff,’’ he said.
The Helping Hands program was meant to last ten projects, but Leaning said he was told to carry on with the project, ‘‘which was just massive’’.
One project, renovating a bathroom for the Perrone family, involved more than 80 tradesmen donating their time, and ended up renovating the whole house.
‘‘Every day I go past it on my way home, and I just think that’s really changed their lives.’’
He said for the past year he has been finding people who need a hand, and finding people who can help him give them that.
‘‘So many companies and so many people put their hands up, and that’s been just as rewarding. People really want to give, and they want to help, they just needed to be given some direction,’’ he said.
A lot of the people and companies who have worked with Leaning on charity builds have gone on to do more charity work without him, he said.
‘‘It’s like you drop a stone in a pond and you get ripples. So I dropped a little stone and made a little ripple, and those companies that were the ripples dropped their own stones, and it just grows.’’
‘‘There’s some really, really generous people in the community.’’
He said his next project would involve teaching school-kids how to do simple handy-man home jobs, and re-invigorate the ‘working-bee’ culture which he remembered from childhood.