Junee Can Assist President, Fiona Rynehart, was recently invited to the Junee High School Year 12 Graduation to accept a cheque from the graduates after a year of fundraising.
Upon arrival, Fiona, alongside fellow Can Assist members, Liz and Graham, were presented with a cheque for $16,588.30.
“That’s the largest amount of money that they’ve fundraised at Junee High School. We could not believe it,” says Fiona.
Due to the hardworking fundraising effort the students put in in 2026, the money will be going towards assisting cancer patients within the Junee community.
Fiona says she is proud to see a younger generation aware and proactively work to positively impact the local community.
“Can Assist in Junee [has] a very large volunteering organisation, but a lot of our volunteers are getting very elderly now, so we love when we can help younger people, and we can get younger people to assist us, or can help us with fundraising,” she said.
“The Junee High School in 2023 also did fundraising for us back then when one of their students was not well. They raised a lot of money for us then, too.”
Fiona says they were overwhelmed with just how generous and keen the students were.
“Those Year 12 students were just the loveliest, loveliest young gentlemen and ladies of the community, and they were very excited to give us that amount of money,” she says.
“It was just amazing, and that is going to help so many people in our local area.”
Although it looks like Junee High School is beginning to wrap up their school year, Junee Can Assist will be powering ahead as they look into ways of bringing out a skin check van to Junee for locals to have their skin checked for sun cancers and other anomalies.
This is just the top of the iceberg for assistance Fiona says they wish to provide.
“We’ve been doing a lot more to help men, as we’ve had a lot more men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer,” she says.
“We’re trying to do more by giving people more assistance in relation to that particular cancer.”
Fiona says they are also looking forward to the upcoming Junee Can Assist markets, which occur on the first Sunday of every month.
Additionally, the Junee Show, Illabo Show and Junee Can Assist Golf Day will bring some colour to the end of the year.
“We also have the race meeting over in Wagga on the 17th of October,” says Fiona.
“We are in cahoots with Lilier Lodge, Canola Way, which is the new Coolamon branch that’s been established, Tumbarumba, Wagga, and ourselves. So, if people would like to go from Junee to the race meeting, that would be absolutely wonderful.
“That then supports our ultimate aim, which is to have all of Can Assist’s branches of the south/southwest NSW to be involved with it.”
Some of the money raised by the Junee students came from their Trivia Night, which hosted ten booked-out tables.
“It was a fun night,” says Fiona.
“[The school] raised so much money because they sold off the Year 12 students to help people at their table.
“It was so well organised.”
Elizabeth Kovacs
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