Please Help Trish

The world is divided into “Givers” and “Takers” and those that just don’t care.

Patricia (Trish) Litjens is a “Giver”, and she cares a whole heap.

If there is a worthy cause or someone in trouble, then behind the scenes somewhere you will find Trish Litjens. From catering for the Canteen at Blackbutt Avofest to running the local Twilight Markets. Whether she is organizing a fundraiser for the local schools or helping out a neighbour, Trish is always busy with one community project or another. The only distraction from her passion for giving to the community is giving to her garden. Trish is a “green thumb” with an intense love of gardening and creating garden rooms within her 5 acres of Blackbutt and Benarkin scrub.

Now, that said Trish can be a cantankerous “son of a gun” who “calls a spade a spade” and has no trouble speaking her mind. You could call her a true curmudgeon – old, cranky and a little stubborn, gruff, grey-haired, crusty and sometimes a little ill-tempered. But we love her to pieces.

Up until the middle of June 2023 life was ambling along quite nicely for Trish. She had her recent health scare under control and her health was being managed. She was involved again, in any number of community projects including co-ordinating and running the “Christmas in July” fundraiser for the local school (her own pet project) to buy sports equipment and make sure all kids were able to attend the annual school camp.

Life was busy but life was good.

It is at this time that Trish receives some bad news. Her health is compromised. She is diagnosed with lung cancer. The prognosis is not good. She is given the news that she only has months left with us. The bottom of her “bucket of life” has just been completely gutted.

Trish is devastated. The sense of “helplessness and loss” is immeasurable and over-whelming, all-consuming and over-powering.

And it is not as though Trish has had an easy life. That she has not. She has had more than her fair share of life’s hard knocks and health problems. She has always met these challenges head on. Her design has always been one of “get yourself up, dust yourself off, make a plan, get back in the saddle, dig the spurs in and get ready for the ride of your life.”

No amount of planning can prepare any person for this level of news. This is her ultimate challenge.

Trish is a proud and self-sufficing individual who finds it hard to accept the level of help she so readily and easily affords to others in their time of need.

The challenge has been set for Blackbutt and Benarkin, the South Burnett and South-East Queensland. It is time to “rally to the call” and the call is that “I won’t let this thing beat me”. “I am going to fight it”.

Trish needs $4000 to start her first round of treatment so lets show her the love she deserves for all that she has done.

Please dig deep.