Hundreds of people streamed through the doors of Strathdale’s Bendigo Club on Saturday to support the Zonta Club of Bendigo’s final fundraiser for the year for the Annie North Women's Refuge.
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Zonta Bendigo fundraising committee member Raelene Schmidt said the event had raised more than $4000 for Annie North in what was a great day out for stall holders and shoppers alike.
“It went very well, we had a great response from the public and all our stall holders had a really good day so it was excellent,” she said.
“It was a gold coin donation and lots of people are very generous.”
With less than a month to go Ms Schmidt said the market had been an ideal opportunity for people to find that perfect Christmas gift.
“There were all sorts of Christmas gifts, food, jewellery, we had lots of good food and lots of gift ideas and I think people were obviously shopping for Christmas which was good,” she said.
The Zonta Club of Bendigo has been a long time supporter of the Annie North Women’s Refuge and the market was just one of many fundraisers the club has held in support of the project this year.
“This year we’ve given a number of linen packs and things like that to Annie North,” Ms Schmidt said.
“We’ve supported them all year this year so there’s been a range of things we’ve contributed to.”
Ms Schmidt said the Annie North centre was a classic example of the sort of project Zonta existed to support.
“Zonta’s main aim is to advocate and to support women and girls so certainly Annie North comes into that category,” she said.
“It’s an international organisation that works to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy.
“With the family violence issues etc. it’s all supporting women so it fills our brief.”
Ms Schmidt said it was encouraging to see the market continue to be well supported by the community over the years.
“We’ve been having this market now for quite some time so it’s good to see that it’s still well supported by the public, and our stallholders of course,” she said.
“We’re actually going to have to get somebody to go back through our history but I’d say it’s been going for about 10 years now.”
The Zonta Club of Bendigo was founded in 1980 and has been active in the local community over the past 30 years with members spanning from Macedon to Elmore.
Meetings are held the first Tuesday of every month except January and March at the Green Olive Warehouse at 6 Eve Court, Golden Square at 6.30pm.
Anyone wishing to attend should contact the club by the preceding Sunday.
For more information visit www.zontabendigo.org