October 11, 2023

Jenny Grant, shop coordinator Malika Burke and Lyn Nielsen are part of the team that helps fund a team of doctors and nurses in the Philippines. by Janine Hill Most of us do not have the skills to repair children born with cleft lips or cleft palates but there is a way for people to help if they have time on their hands. Helping Children Smile needs volunteers to help in its Nambour op shop, which raises money for the organisation’s life-changing work. Every year, the organisation sends a team of doctors and nurses to the Philippines to perform corrective surgery on children with cleft lips and palates. Cleft lips and cleft palates are birth defects that occur when babies’ lips or mouths do not form properly before they are born. Malika Burke, a nurse and shop coordinator for Helping Children Smile, said cleft lips and palates meant physical and emotional difficulties for children. “They often wear masks because they’re so embarrassed but it’s not just that. Yes, they can have trouble talking and eating, they can dribble, their teeth grow crooked because you need your lips to keep them in, but they’re also at increased risk of choking and

Museum President Clive Plater at the new bridge lift display. 20 YEARS SINCE MILL CLOSED, 30 SINCE MUSEUM OPENED by Janine Hill A new display will be opened at the Nambour museum to coincide with two important anniversaries. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Moreton Mill closure and 30 years since the formation of the Nambour and District Historical Museum Association. A new display featuring the pulley wheels from the lift span bridge over the Maroochy River near Dunethin Rock will be opened at a combined celebration at the museum on 14 October. The mechanism was used to lift a span of the bridge so boats could pass under. The 100-year-old heritage listed bridge which provided a crossing for the cane trains during the Coast’s sugar industry days was destroyed in the February 2022 flood. Museum president Clive Plater said that wheels from the bridge’s lifting mechanism were saved prior to the flood. “In June 2020 the state government removed the lift span section of the bridge. It was in danger of dropping into the river,” he said. “The bits and pieces were stored by the state government. We got the option of doing something with them after