The rest-home’s annual general auction takes place at the Kurow Racecourse today.
This year, the funds are going towards a major redevelopment. New kitchen and dining facilities will be installed, five bedrooms added, a new entranceway created and roofing replaced.
Most of the work will be carried out on the lodge’s Awakino Wing.
The improvements are being made possible by a $180,000 grant from the Otago Community Trust and a $480,000 loan from the Waitaki District Council.
The former maternity home was built in 1926-27 and closed in 1975. A North Otago farming family, the Whalans, bought the buildings in the 1980s and gave the property to the community with the stipulation it be used to benefit the wider population.
It reopened as a rest-home in 1984 and has been run by the Whalan Lodge Trust since then.
The lodge provided a place for older people who would otherwise have to move away from their families, trust chairman Barney McCone said.
When the refurbishment is completed, it will be able to house up to 20 people.
Auction goods include a wool press, mower-topper, tractor-mounted sprayer, bale feeder, shearing plant, cattle-weighing crate, motorised posthole digger, concrete killing shed, hydraulic log splitter, electric fence units, concrete troughs, a seed drill, a double dog crate for a ute, quad bikes, irrigation sprinklers, equestrian gear, a horse-drawn single-furrow plough, and an antique hay rake.
Rural paraphernalia such as a crowbar, strainer posts, fencing wire, alkathene pipe, pea straw and windbreak cloth are also going under the hammer, along with many household and camping items.
Anyone with goods to contribute, to be sold either as a donation to the lodge or on behalf of the seller, can phone Michael Taylor on 027436-0188 or Simon Taylor on 027541-3070.
Buyers can register from 9am at the racecourse today before the bidding starts at 10am.
