By Natasha Fujimoto
WITH endless gratitude to all those who have worked to support Greater Shepparton through and beyond the floods, the story of Jimmy Shi’s efforts to provide his local community with essential supplies through rising flood waters at the Colliver Road Foodworks, is a shining example of community spirit.
Described as ‘the best boss ever,’ by Foodworks employees, Jimmy describes the anxiety he felt as flood waters began to rise rapidly on Saturday evening, October 15.
“The road was closed off Saturday afternoon and water took just three hours to rise almost to shop level. Sunday was the worst and without the sandbags delivered by the SES, we would have been in real trouble,” Jimmy said.
Not knowing how high the water would get and with conflicting news sources, Jimmy spent a terrified Sunday night lifting stock off lower shelves,
“I was so scared about the water because just a centimetre of water would mean I’d have to turn the power off.”
Despite the threat of stock loss, Jimmy kept his doors open into the evening as people in the area had no other means of getting supplies,
“Most customers in this area don’t drive and they were stuck inside their houses.
“Customers were really happy to have us open so they could get food and drinks. It would have been more dangerous for them to go into town.”
Praising his dedicated staff members, Vikki Butt and Kai Bocktin, Jimmy says that he would not have been able to stay open without them,
“Vikki walked through thigh-high water to get here, even as her own street was flooding and Kai came in on his two days off because they knew that if we’d closed our doors the people in this community would have been in real trouble,” Jimmy said.
