Glencore's Bulga Coal has taken a creative approach to help raise awareness and funding for Singleton Neighbourhood Centre's Open Door facility this month.
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The site partnered with Hitachi, Jaws and Bradken to convert their largest hydraulic excavator from a face shovel to a backhoe configuration, which means it will dig towards itself. The conversion will help to increase the productivity of the machine among other things.
As a part of the project, Bulga and partners saw the opportunity to support Open Door in a big way.
"Together with our partners, we decided to paint the new excavator bucket in Open Door colours to raise awareness and funding for the local charity," Bulga Coal Operations Manager, Dave Foster said.
Open Door provides a safe place for people in need to have a shower, enjoy a meal and feel a part of the community. During the pandemic, they moved quickly to adapt to COVID-19 rules so they could continue to provide their services.
"The team at Open Door do great things for people in need in our community and have continued to be a vital service throughout this pandemic," Dave said.
"Everyone at Bulga Coal is incredibly proud to showcase and support Open Door through this excavator conversion and we hope to see their services continue well into the future."
Along with the eye-catching excavator bucket, each partner has donated $1,000 to Open Door and Bulga is also hosting fundraising barbeques for crews on site.
President of the Singleton Neighbourhood Centre, Sue George, said everyone at Open Door greatly appreciated the donations and generosity of all involved.
"To see the bucket painted in Open Door colours, it was just amazing," Sue said.
"In 2012, there was a large number of people in Singleton experiencing homelessness. The team at Singleton Neighbourhood Centre saw the opportunity to expand and renovate the centre's shed to provide additional assistance to those in need.
"Through the community, and partners like Glencore, we were able to raise enough funds to convert the shed into our Open Door facility.
"We're incredibly thankful for the support of Glencore and partners."