Podcast Episode #6: Australian Bushfire Tragedy Podcast

Our hearts are breaking as we see the absolute devastation that the bushfires are causing our country.

The loss of life, homes and businesses, as well as the destruction of our beautiful landscape brings tears to many people’s eyes. And this is only the beginning of our fire season.

My name is Melody and joining me in this chat is Dr Sam Ooi, the principal dentist and owner of Passion Family Dental North Lakes. Hi Sam!

Sam: Hi, everyone! As Melody said, these bushfires are devastating.

Melody: Sitting here in North Lakes we are truly lucky. The fires haven’t affected us too much, we are still able to work and carry on pretty much as normal, the worst we get is a little bit of a smoke haze and prices of some foods may rise.

But our hearts are hurting as we see the way the fires, and the drought too come to that, has affected, and continues to effect, so many people.

We have had patients coming in telling us how they have friends or family effected in ways that we hadn’t even thought of. We see news article or posts on Facebook. The mind boggles with the impact these fires are having.

Sam: Seeing the animals suffering is hard to watch, but it is the loss of life that hurts me the most.

Melody: It is horrible! The impact this will have will last for years as people rebuild their homes and businesses and farmers start over again.

Sam: That’s why we wanted to see if there was some way we could help.

Melody: To rebuild again and to help all the injured wildlife, what communities and organisations is asking for most is for financial help.

It has been wonderful to hear that big businesses even Hollywood movie stars are making donations to this very worthy cause.

Sam: And we want to do our bit too!

Melody: Yes! On Friday 31 January we are hold a Bushfire Donation Day! On this day we will be donating all our earnings for the day to the Australian Lions Foundation National Bushfire Appeal.

100% of their donations go to purchase local shopping vouchers, water, and food supplies to support local residents and businesses that have been impacted by the fires.

Sam: This is our way of supporting those in need and Lions do a great job helping the community.

Melody: We are also going to find a couple of families that have been effected by the fires and donate directly to them.

I think many of us feel a little helpless when we watch the news. We see the amazing job the firies are doing and want to find a way to do something to help. Giving up a days earning is the least we can do.

Sam: I wish we could do more.

Melody: I think that staying positive and supporting these communities is a great way to help Australia recover. It has been so heart-warming to hear some of the stories coming from the fire torn areas.

People opening up their homes to strangers, all the tradies giving their time to help in the clean-up, communities banding together to make sure a couples wedding plans still go ahead.

One of my favourite videos has been of a young rural fire brigade officer doing the Git Up Challenge, that cowboy hoedown dance that is viral at the moment, He did this during a break, just to give the other firies a reason to smile.

Sam: We all need to find a reason to smile.

Melody: Well this video has certainly made a lot of people smile, the fireman has been interviewed on both radio and television and the video has been watch worldwide thousands of times.

To bring joy to so many people at such a difficult time is something really special.

Sam: To hear the number of people volunteering to help or make donations has been incredible.

Melody: We have all heard of people’s generosity. Kids donating their pocket money and big businesses donating millions. As well as all the donations of food, clothing etc.

Then there have been all the stories of bravery. My son in laws uncle lives on the coast in New South Wales and was told to evacuate.

He waited as long as he safely could because he was busy boating water and food supplies out to people who were isolated because of the fires.

This is an older gentleman who has had a liver transplant. We are so proud of his efforts. Good on you Andy!

Sam: That was very brave of him.

Melody: It was, though he was always careful and listened to the advice he was given by officials. Andy is just one of the many people who have helped those in need.

He is one of the lucky ones, his house and family is fine. It is to acknowledge the brave people that have gone through such horrible, difficult days, and for all those that have lost so much, for the animals that are injured or have perished, and for the brave firefighters, and especially the volunteers, that we are holding this Bushfire Donation Day.

Sam: This is something we are more than happy to do.

Melody: It will be a special day for us.

So, thank you everyone for listening to this chat today, if you haven’t donated towards the fires yourself, then give it a bit of thought and just give what you can. Keep a watch out for our next podcast and in the meantime take care and keep smiling.

Sam: Bye everyone, thanks for listening.