Launching the Giving Tree

Launch of the ABC Giving Tree by Rodney Croome, 28.11.14

I was a bit non-plussed when I was asked to launch this year’s Giving Tree.

“How do I launch a tree?”, I asked my friends.

One suggested I use a catapult. Another said I should break a bottle of Champaign across the branches.

To my great relief I’ve been told all I need to do is switch on the lights. We get to keep the Champaign for later.

I’ve always loved the children’s story, The Giving Tree.

It’s about a tree and a small boy who play together and love each other.

The tree is sad when the boy grows up and is absent for long periods.

But she is always happy to give him whatever he asks of her when he returns, be it her apples to sell, her branches to make in to a house, her trunk to build a boat, and finally her stump for him to rest his now old and weary bones.

The story is about unconditional love for others. It is about the things of greatest value to us being what we give away.

The story reminds me of when I was a small boy on a North West Coast dairy farm and my amazement that the trees in our garden would give me flowers, fruit, shade and hidden place from which I could watch the world, and they would do this year in year out without expecting anything from me in return.

It reminds me of the children at school who had nothing and to whom I would give my matchbox cars.

It reminds me of the men who occupied huts on our farm when there was seasonal work to be done and to whom I would deliver cordial on hot days, until that day their work was done and they vanished.

There is no hiding the poverty and inequalities in Tasmania, even from a dreamy child.

My love of the story of the Giving Tree means it is an exceptional honour for me to be able to launch a real Giving Tree.

In so doing I pay tribute to its originator, Rick Paterson, a man whose foresight in establishing the Giving Tree is rivalled only by his bigness of heart.

I pay tribute to all the volunteer fundraisers and generous donors across our wonderful island who make sacrifices large and small so that children do not go without at Christmas.

And I pay tribute to the ABC. You are a custodian of what is best in our society – our community spirit, our empathy for others, the way we rise to a crisis, the way we weave our lives together in stories, our regard for the marginalised and disadvantaged, our belief in the equal dignity and worth of all.

You’re not just part of The Team. With this tree you’re our captain coach.

With that I would like to launch the 2014 Giving Tree.