IN just over the space of a month, Gatton Coles staff and customers raised more than $18,400 for Hummingbird House – the second highest amount collected for the children’s hospice, beaten by the Aspley Hypermarket.

Store manager Ray Holmes said the team of 110 staff members started fundraising in September with a goal of $6000 after raising $2700 for Queensland’s only children’s hospice last year.

Fundraising included barbecues run on a volunteer basis by Coles staff members, donations at the checkout with $2 Hummingbird tokens, and merchandise sold in store.

“The community was very generous,” Mr Holmes said.

“The money has now been given to Hummingbird House to support the families and the kids.

“This year we set a goal to see what we could achieve, so we were pretty happy with what we did.

“I was very proud of our team who got involved by volunteering at barbecues and they also bought the Hummingbird House shirts.”

Mr Holmes said the Gatton region had been hit by the ongoing drought conditions and yet customers were still keen to donate to such a worthy cause.

“It just shows that they’re willing to dig deep and support relevant charities which is really good.”

He said the fundraiser had also raised awareness about Hummingbird House.

“It helped educate the community about what Hummingbird House is and how they help families who are going through that challenge.”

Mr Holmes said an initial fundraising goal of $6000 was quickly increased to $10,000 as donations poured in.

“And then we changed the target to $20,000 but we just fell short, so that’s next year’s goal now.”