www.awnw.com.au
Issue #217 – Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Albury Wodonga’s largest circulating newspaper
Suprise winner for Gift THE Albury Wodonga Gift presented some surprising results on Sunday, with challenging handicaps, Olympians thrown in the mix and an unlikely winner. Turn to Page 26 OUR VOLUNTEERS – DESERVING AUSTRALIA DAY WINNERS - PAGES 3-6, 10-11
Our great ‘giver’ By KRYSTEN MANUEL MANY Aussie children grow up with memories of their mothers threatening to give away their food to starving children in Africa if they don’t finish their dinner. They are sheltered from the harsh realities of life and often nagged to spend more time with the family. For Tonia Timmermans, the lessons of childhood - to share, be grateful, put family first and so on - were delivered differently. She spent three and a half years in a Japanese concentration camp with her mother, father and six siblings. For eight-year-old Tonia, whether she was eating her crusts or not was not an issue. Whether or not she ate at all that day was. “My father didn’t want to waste anything,” she said. “After the war he would say ‘if you really can’t eat it, give it to the birds’.” Thanks to these experiences, Tonia’s life has been one of great generosity, a generosity that led to her receiving the Albury Citizen of the Year Award on Sunday. “It’s an honour and I definitely didn’t expect it,” she said. “I’m a bit shy about getting the award because I think there’s a lot of people that are a lot more deserving than I am.” Tonia arrived in Albury in 1961 and has influenced the success of many local community organisations including Albury Public and later Albury High School P&C, CAA (Oxfam), and Scouts. She influenced the development of the Regional Art Gallery as a foundation member of Friends of the Gallery. As Murray Conservatorium’s only office person, then later as a member of the Board of Management, Tonia also made a significant contribution to the development of the Conservatorium, in particular bringing high quality overseas and local performers to Albury.
She is a member of the Albury Base Hospital Auxiliary, the Information Bureau and Zonta International. Most significantly, Tonia has been heavily involved in community efforts behind the Fight Cancer Foundation since 2004, helping to raise $5.5m for the construction of the AlburyWodonga Carers Accommodation Centre (Hilltop). Sadly, her attention to the issue arose from her experience of losing her husband Edward to cancer in 2002. “I went to Melboune when my husband had cancer,” she said. “So for four or five days I stayed in a motel every night. It was so lonely with no one to talk to. “Then the Leukeamia Foundation came to me and said ‘where are you staying? If you want to share a hall with other people we have one vacancy.’ “So I shared with people who were in similar circumstances. I would come home at 7 o’clock and talk, share food, that sort of thing. It was so precious to have,” Tonia said. “At Albury’s Carer’s Accommodation, between every 10 rooms there’s what’s called a hub, that way they have contact with people and don’t feel so lonely. I think that’s the best asset of it all.” When asked where her passion for volunteering comes from, Tonia told NewsWeekly a little about her concentration camp experience. “I don’t know where my passion comes from, maybe my parents ... I have been through the war years and I was in a concentration camp - I was young of course,” she said. “There’s a lot of camaraderie, there’s a lot of fights among the women, there’s a lot of crying, maybe that’s had an affect on me, I’m not sure. Continued Page 8
Albury’s Citizen of the Year – Tonia Timmermans learned to share early in life.
Picture: ADAM WILSON
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