KELSIE IORIO

Every year for the Ignatius Park College swimming carnival, the school buys enough Mcdonald’s cheeseburgers to feed an army (of teenage boys).

This year, Mcdonald’s Aitkenvale donated more than 700 cheeseburgers for the students to buy during their swimming carnival, with all proceeds from burger sales going to flood relief charities.

Year 10 student Atticus D’mello, 15, volunteered to help sell the cheeseburgers to fellow students at the carnival, which was held last week. He said the money would be donated to St Vincent de Paul.

“We normally sell cheeseburgers each year to raise money for a charity, and this year we decided to choose the natural disaster that happened a few weeks ago,” Atticus said.

“We nearly sold out of burgers immediately as lunchtime started. There’s also been a lot of donations, to help those who have lost everything to the flooding.”

Atticus said support for the cause was strong, and while the final figure was not yet confirmed, the school expected to have raised well over $1000.

“It’s close to hearts. We have a lot of families at the school who have been affected by the flooding and we’re helping them in every way possible, but we would also like to help the Townsville community,” he said.

“That’s the idea behind this – to raise money for the whole of Townsville.

“We would like to thank Mcdonald’s Aitkenvale for donating the burgers – we couldn’t have done it without them.”

Mcdonald’s Aitkenvale restaurant manager Jake Tinsley said the school usually bought a few hundred cheeseburgers for sporting carnivals, but the restaurant was inspired to donate the burgers to pay it forward to the community.

“They wanted to pay for it, but we thought everyone’s doing it tough lately and they were donating to flood victims, so we thought we might do our part for the community as well and donate all of it to them,” Mr Tinsley said.

He said it took about an hour-and-a-half to make the huge supply of burgers, with a small team working on the order while the rest of the staff managed regular customers.

“We had the restaurant open as well and had other orders to make,” he said.

“It was all hands on deck.”