Wherever there's a need, we'll be there

Daniel Taylor has served in the thick of floods, fires, and missing-persons searches. Yet he’s not a police officer, an ambulance officer or a firefighter.

The father of two is a Salvation Army Emergency Services (SAES) volunteer.

He loves the camaraderie of his SAES team, with everyone pitching in to assist to provide food, refreshments and a listening ear to people involved in local emergencies or natural disasters.

“I’ve been in the middle of the Blue Mountains [west of Sydney] feeding police dealing with body recoveries and things like that,” he says. “I’ve been to Rockhampton when they had their floods. Sometimes it’s very remote and sometimes you’re in the middle of the city for factory fires. It’s really mobile and you can go anywhere.”

For Daniel, volunteering for the SAES is his way of helping out in times of need. “There’s not a great deal of training,” he says. Yet the rewards are significant.

“The firies who have been out on the frontline fighting fires for you know, 6-8 hours, will come in and you will see their white teeth through their black faces and they’re just happy to have a hot meal and someone they can talk to,” says Daniel. “‘Thank God for the Salvos’ – I hear that a lot.”

Caption: For Daniel Taylor, SAES volunteering is a way of ‘giving back’

Photo: Adam Hollingworth