One year ago, The Lott hosted the Saturday Lotto Bushfire Benefit Draw and donated profits to support a number of organisations helping communities recover from the disastrous 2020 bushfire season.   

Back before the shock of COVID19, Australia faced the worst bushfire disaster in its history. Thanks to our customers, we donated $1.8 million to eight charity groups across the country.  

One of the community groups The Lott supported was WIRES (NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service Inc.), Australia's largest wildlife rescue organisation.

WIRES has been rescuing and caring for wildlife for over 30 years, and WIRES’ mission is to actively rehabilitate and preserve Australian wildlife and inspire others to do the same.  

Over the past year, WIRES has used The Lott's donation to:  

• Initiate 64 projects to support the national recovery of wildlife and wildlife
• Plant of over 92,000 plants for habitat revegetation
• Install 1,554 nest boxes 
• Develop long-term species recovery and habitat programs, expanding threatened species care and breeding
• Provided national veterinary vaccination grants to increase veterinary capacity to treat flying foxes
• Built and distributed $1 million worth of arboreal water stations for native wildlife
• Constructed and expanded wildlife hospitals, supporting extensions and medical fit-out costs
• Started bushfire recovery projects to protect over 17 threatened and endangered species including the endangered including the Northern Bettong and Kangaroo Island Dunnart, from extinction
• Employed a full-time emergency rescuer out of Currumbin Wildlife Hospital to support local rehabilitation network, ensuring animals needed urgent rescue attention can be assisted faster
• Provided free training for wildlife rescue groups across the country so that they can implement best practice response and care for wildlife.   

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll profile how the Bushfire Benefit Draw donation made a difference in other ways across the community.