Raffles for the Mudgee and District Relay For Life were drawn on Saturday, as the cancelled event is wound down, which saw the "community quilt" - as it's become known - find a new home.
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The Relay was scheduled for April this year, but was pushed back to 2021 as the pandemic hit. Then in the ongoing climate, the decision was made to cancel outright.
Among the 25 teams that'd signed up was McKenzie Bellhouse - Pam and Chris Bellhouse. Whose fundraising centrepiece was the patchwork quilt, featuring panels [pictured right] that represent the Relay For Life motto "Hope Lives Here" in 27 different languages, contributed by friends residing around the world.
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Selling raffle tickets for the item raised a whopping $3,300, having set a target of $2,000. The couple sold in Mudgee, while their friends - as far flung as Darwin and Hobart - were also doing so.
Although despite the raffle becoming a national event of sorts, the luck of the draw kept the quilt in Mudgee, with Kirsty Skinner being the recipient. The Bellhouses were looking forward to the next local Relay, but seeing off the quilt nonetheless closes the chapter.
Speaking of which, the quilt also came with a book they'd prepared, that tells the story of its making. "It was a history about how it came about, with friends and friends of friends - as we said before, it really was a community quilt. Because people translated for us and others contributed to it in other ways," Pam said.
And added that because people helped from far and wide, "I'm going to put the video [of the draw] onto my Facebook page, so that friends who sold tickets for us in Darwin, Cairns and Arnhem Land, have a chance to see what happened".
Pam said the goodbye wasn't easy, but it was a labour of love in the fight for a cancer-free world.
"It's a bit hard, because that represented two-and-a-bit years of work, from the idea to gathering all of the information - the 'Hope Lives Here' panels took nine months in itself," she said.
"I'm a bit like everyone else in that until I took up quilting I had no idea how much work went into them. It was a lot of work, but it was for a good cause."
