Latin America and Polar specialists, Chimu Adventures, have donated a truck load of hay to rural communities in New South Wales, Australia, through Rural Aid after pledging to donate ‘a bale a booking’ for all Chimu bookings made in August. This coincides with the United Nation’s International Day of Charity on Wednesday 5th September which celebrates and encourages charitable endeavours to relieve poverty worldwide.
As we are all aware, farmers across Australia are facing one of the worst droughts in history. The price of grain has risen while the price of stock has fallen and rural communities have been majorly affected. The severity of the drought led Chimu at the beginning of August to investigate ways in which they could help and they chose to support the charity Rural Aid. Chimu encouraged the travel industry to join forces with them and this resulted in companies such as Globus, Wendy Wu Tours, Entire Travel Group and Helloworld following suit with their own efforts for Rural Aid.
Rural Aid/Buy a Bale is a registered charity established in 2013. After reading about Queensland farmers who were being forced to destroy their cattle and abandon their land due to the conditions, Charles and Tracy Alder felt compelled to do something. Conversations with agriculture industry groups and a background in marketing led them to establish the fundraising campaign ‘Buy a Bale;’ a tangible way for Australian’s to help. Since September 2013, the campaign has delivered over 160 000 bales of hay across four states in Australia. The current drought is so acute that it has been necessary for the charity to draft hay supplies from Western Australia. Donations at a time like this are thus vital.
Chimu can report that the bookings their travellers made in August have resulted in a truck load of hay being sent to some of the places feeling the worse effects of the drought in New South Wales in time for World Charity Day. Chimu co-founder Greg Carter reflects on this: “We work with many regional Australia travel agents and clients living through this drought so finding a way to support them was something we felt compelled to do. World Charity Day reminds us that we should be helping because we can, not just because it is convenient to. The result of our ‘A Bale a Booking’ campaign is heartening.”
As Polar and Latin America specialists, Chimu have supported hundreds of local communities in Latin America through their MAD Project which aims to empower local communities and help them develop their own infrastructure for the future. They have also run fundraising voyages to the polar regions to raise much needed cash for Australian not-for-profit organisations such as the Mawson’s Huts Foundation, Love Your Sister and The McGrath Foundation so being able to help their travellers to donate to another local charity such as Rural Aid/Buy a Bale is something they are proud to announce.
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