RED Shield Appeal
2017
The Pajero 4WD Club of Victoria has supported the Red Shield Appeal for 20 years on Wednesday 17th May 2017 . Thank you to members for their wonderful support .
Johnny ' Apples ' story
Johnny Applekamp (' Apples ' to everyone ) was supported in his search for work through The Salvation Army . This is his story
" It ' s amazing how the human race seems to weed out people such as myself who are not quite the same as the ' norm '.
I mean I ' m ' all there ', but when I was a kid , at six months , I had a stroke . Now my left arm ' s a bit , well ... it won ' t work properly . I can ' t bend it over . There are times I ' d like to grab the chainsaw and cut it off .
I went through a bit of a hard time with that . I was never real good at school . I only just - and I mean only just - finished Year 10 . I ended up in jail , did a bit of time inside , which I ' m not real proud of .
I was unemployed . The amount of knockbacks I got , and the ' Don ' t ring us , we ' ll ring you ', any excuse under the sun . It was hard . Getting towards the end , with mum dying and so forth , it really got to the stage where I thought no , I ' ve had enough , I just can ' t handle it any more , I just want to put a gun to my head and just end it all . The unemployment agency said I had to go and register with an employment service . That was the Salvos one called Employment Plus . They were good . There was always someone there for me .
38 Vol 34 No . 4- May 2017 Vol 34 No . 4 - May 2017