By Di Stanley
On land and in the sky, fundraising efforts for the Royal Flying Doctor Service by popular couple Wal and Rach McDowall have seen them donate $40,000 toward the vision of a patient transfer station at the Emerald airport.
Mr McDowall was a competitor in the 2022 Lottery Office Outback Air Race whose team raised more than $70,000. The event raised a collective $750,000 for the RFDS to continue its vital work in rural, regional and remote Australia.
The pair also hosted a $200-a-head Comanche Flyers charity soiree in Emerald, with the RFDS benefitting to the tune of $34,000.
The McDowalls approached the RFDS to use $40,000 for the Emerald project.
“If the RFDS weren’t there, we would be a third-world country within a state that is in a first-world country,“ Mrs McDowall said.
“The event in Emerald, of the 200 people that came, I knew about 180 of them well enough to say hello to and the other 20 I didn’t know came because either their partner or their child was alive because of the RFDS.
“That was really humbling and just so surprising.
“Even friends I knew well enough, I didn’t realise they had a story and it went back 19 years.
“I grew up with my mum always being a volunteer for the RFDS and when she retired, she got heavily involved in the Sunshine Coast RFDS, so it’s always been something that has floated around in our family for years.“
Mr McDowall has been a pilot for two decades and along with friends Ian Campbell and Tom Staines, decided to enter last year’s Lottery Office Outback Air Race as the Comanche Flyers.
A twist of fate saw Mr McDowall’s Comanche PA 250 flooded before the race was due to start and Rolleston’s Baden Crittle stepped in to offer his plane.
The outback air race is a timed leg event that zig and zags from Darwin to Coffs Harbour.
“They didn’t come last, but they were the second-highest fundraisers with something like $74,000,“ Mrs McDowall said.
“With the air race, the RFDS let each state use the money however they see fit, and Queensland had said any money raised from the race would go to rural things, not maintaining planes or maintaining head office.
“It was to be used in rural areas because that’s where the money was raised, so that’s why we kept half to go where it’s needed and that locally here to help Derek Mayne and the Rotary Club to this hub up and running.“
The RFDS patient transfer station is the major project for the Emerald Rotary Club.