In early 2020, Melbourne-based agri-business Ameropa Australia made three important pledges in relation to how they would handle the emerging COVID-19 pandemic as an organisation. These pledges were:
- To keep their people and their families safe;
- To make a meaningful contribution to helping the community beat the virus; and
- To keep their business running in order to effectively serve customers.
With these pledges in mind, Ameropa Australia launched an organisation-wide campaign to encourage staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Their unique incentive was directly in line with their second pledge, as they vowed to donate $200 to RFDS on behalf of every employee and contractor who was fully vaccinated by 10 December, 2021. They adopted this incentive prior to vaccinations being mandated to encourage employees to get the jab.
“RFDS was chosen because they're a health-related charity in the middle of a global health pandemic,” says an Ameropa Australia representative. “They're directly involved in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccinations, and they support the same rural Australian communities where we make our living in the fertilizer industry.”
Ameropa Australia has 23 locations throughout eastern Australia, including in the Gippsland region of Victoria, where the Flying Doctor operates its Wellbeing service, Rural Women’s GP service, Dental clinic, Mobile Eye Care clinic and Mobile Patient Care non-emergency patient transport service.
Through the collective efforts of Ameropa Australia’s 175 employees and contractors in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania who were fully vaccinated by the set deadline, Ameropa Australia donated $35,000 to RFDS.
“On behalf of the Flying Doctor, I thank Ameropa Australia for this wonderful donation,” says Scott Chapman, Chief Executive of RFDS Victoria. “And on behalf of the health care sector – thank you to everyone who rolled up their sleeve and played their part by getting vaccinated.
“It has been a very challenging period for the health care sector, but the steadying of numbers in recent weeks and the relatively low hospital admissions says that the vaccine is doing its job.
Ameropa Australia notes that this campaign was being done due to the organisation’s understanding that widespread vaccination is a positive for their employees generally, their business and the communities in which they operate.
“We’re very proud that we are able to make this donation to such a worthy charitable organisation as the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and hope that it will make a difference to the communities that the Royal Flying Doctor Service supports,” says an Ameropa Australia representative.
