General News
26 May, 2026
Audrey's not finished yet
At 91, Audrey McFarlane still puts her name on volunteer rosters, attends community meetings, supports local fundraising and gives her time to the town she has served for more than four decades.
Audrey began volunteering in Hopetoun in 1983, when she and three other women from her church saw families struggling after the severe 1982 drought.
“The year of 1982 was a very bad drought year here in Hopetoun,” Audrey said.
In 1983, the four women decided the town needed an opportunity shop.
“There were four of us from our church who saw that there was a need for an op shop in Hopetoun,” she said.
The shop started small and moved several times before settling in the old courthouse.
“We shifted three times, and we’re there now in the old courthouse,” Audrey said.
Forty-three years later, the Hopetoun Opportunity Shop is still operating strongly.
Audrey said younger volunteers now bring fresh ideas, but she still takes her turn when she can.
“I’m not so much involved with it now, as younger people have taken it over, and it’s going really good,” she said.
Audrey said the op shop has always been about more than selling donated goods.
In its early years, the volunteers helped provide clothing to families who were doing it tough.
“We would give clothes to the infant welfare sister to take to people that she knew were battling,” she said.
Audrey’s service did not stop with the op shop.
Over the years, she has volunteered with church committees, Meals on Wheels, Red Cross, the hospital auxiliary, Vision Australia and the community garden.
For Meals on Wheels, she delivered food to people around Hopetoun, often driving herself.
“I used to take the meals from our church,” Audrey said.
She said the work gave her joy after people appreciated the help.
“Most of the people, they’re just so grateful to have something given to them,” she said.
Audrey also spent about 10 years helping vision-impaired residents stay connected with local news.
Through a project supported by the Rotary Club, volunteers recorded the Hopetoun Courier onto cassette tapes and delivered them to people in their homes and at the village.
“We would read the local courier onto a cassette tape,” she said.
Audrey said they read most of the paper, including news and sport, so people who could not read it themselves could still hear what was happening in the community.
“It was just like the audiobooks which we have nowadays,” she said.
Although she was born near Rainbow and grew up at Wheatlands, Audrey has been closely connected with Hopetoun for decades.
She moved to Hopetoun in 1995, but had been travelling into town to volunteer long before then.
Audrey said her church remains very important to her, but the op shop is also close to her heart as she helped start it.
“I guess the church is close to my heart, but also the op shop because we first started that,” she said.
She said her motivation has always been simple.
“I just like people,” Audrey said.
“I just love serving the people and just being involved in things.”
Now, Audrey remains involved with the hospital auxiliary, Red Cross, the community garden, the church and the op shop.
At the community garden, she attends meetings, helps prune trees and supports the group where she can.
She believes volunteering is becoming harder to sustain as many younger people balance work and family, but she encourages them to give it a go.
“Just put your hand up,” Audrey said.
“Once they start, they’ll be fine.”
Her message to the Hopetoun community is just as direct.
“If someone asks you to do something, just do it, because you get a lot of pleasure out of doing it,” she said.
And after 43 years of community service in her local town, Audrey has no plans to stop.
“I’m not finished yet, I tell you,” she said.