THE selfless act of a former Dimboola woman and her family has been brought to life on stage.
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Horsham's Holy Trinity Lutheran School depicted the true story of Heidi Tayler, nee Kay, husband Dave and their children Sam and Bobbie's drive to help the homeless in Melbourne during the state finals of the Wakakirri dance competition in Melbourne.
Mrs Tayler and her family attended the performance on Monday.
“We were so proud. It was very surreal and amazing that something we thought was so small ended up touching so many people,” she said. “The students did a beautiful job.”
The story depicted how Mrs Tayler and her family were walking along Melbourne’s Collins Street to a family Christmas party when Bobbie noticed a homeless person and wanted to give them money.
“I said, ‘come on, we have to keep going’ – but the kids kept talking about it over the weekend and said they wanted to bake some cookies for the homeless,” Mrs Tayler said.
“I didn’t think anything of it and thought it would pass.
“But when we were getting ready to go back to school, I was baking cookies and the kids asked if we were going to Melbourne to give them to the homeless.”
The family set aside a day to bake 100 bags of cookies and later walked the streets of Melbourne distributing them.
The school learned about the story on radio and it became the inspiration for their Wakakirri performance.
The students won a teamwork award at Monday’s finals at Hamer Hall.
Teacher Mark Busbridge said the students performed well.
“There were 11 other groups involved from across Victoria,” he said.
“Because they told a story about people sleeping rough and being homeless, I think it opened their eyes to that situation and how you can make a difference, even by doing a little thing.
“We thank everyone who was involved, from the students who gave up their lunchtimes and their families for supporting them, to the teachers.”
Mr Busbridge said it was fantastic the Tayler family was able to watch the students’ performance.
He said the school entered the Wakakirri competition every two years as part of its performing arts curriculum.
“In the other years we do a primary school musical,” he said.