Giru day care seeks urgent flood repairs

THE future of the Giru Day Care is uncertain, with more than $20,000 needed to upgrade the septic tank and repair fencing around the facility.

While the centre itself remained unharmed by flood waters, the septic tank is in urgent need of an upgrade and fencing around the facility is deemed unsafe.

The centre’s president Rosa Frew said up until last year the septic system seemed to be coping.

“Whenever we get a heavy flooding issue it fills and water can’t get away, and we have to pump out,” Ms Frew said.

“Until this last year it was handling it, then we were told that we would have to have a look at what we can do.

“Late last year we did get a quote in. The only way to sort the problem out was a new septic tank, to be built to withstand all this flooding.”

That job alone was quoted to cost about $20,000; now, with the need to upgrade the fencing, that figure is set to go up further.

“With all this water that has been down there, our fences to our perimeter are now falling and very unsafe and we have that issue as well,” Ms Frew said. “They are the two main health issues and safety issues that need to get sorted, (we need to) have some funding to assist us to get it in.”

Ms Frew said the community daycare facility had more than 40 children enrolled, providing vacation care during the holidays and an afterschool care facility for the Giru State School.

“We have people who live out on farms, out at Horseshoe Lagoon; our families come from everywhere; WoodstockGiru Rd, down Jerona way,” she said.

“There is nothing between here and Ayr; we have people coming to us from Brandon. It’s a service that has to continue for this community.”

Ms Frew said it was a matter of getting a plan in place fast to save the community service along with the five jobs it provided to local residents.

“I need to have a very fast plan in place on how I am going to address the issues,” she said. “I do not need septic overflow coming back into the kindergarten or they will close us, and I can’t do that.

“There are five staff that rotate, they are not all full time … that’s five people’s jobs gone.

“Somebody has to help us … To put in for another community grant and sit back and wait, I am not sure whether we could even operate.”