The Broken Hill football and wider community has continued to kick goals for local youngster Ryan Lines, adding about $11,000 to a widespread community fundraising effort.
Ryan was rushed to the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide after an A Streptococcus bacterial infection, or strep A, developed into a severe blood infection in December.
In the months since, the one-year-old has required multiple amputations, including both legs below the knee, all his fingertips and multiple fingers.
He is now an outpatient at the hospital, but receives daily treatments and is on a slow road to recovery.
Community rallies together
The Broken Hill community instantly rallied around Ryan and his parents, Jess and Sam, including holding a raffle and setting up a GoFundMe page, the latter of which has raised more than $120,000 to date.
Over the weekend, the South Broken Hill Football Club, which has close ties to the Lines family, hosted the latest community fundraiser, a garage sale.
Board member Michael Bird, who helped organise the garage sale, said dozens of donations were received for the fundraiser, as well as cash donations.
"We had a lot of stuff [and] we got through the majority of it. What was left we just packed up and took to Lifeline," Mr Bird said.
"There was a lot of people that just came in and didn't even buy anything and just gave $100 or whatever."
Items on offer included household and kitchen appliances, furniture, toys, clothing and even a few pieces of art.
Mr Bird said representatives from the Silver City's other football clubs all got behind their fundraiser in some way but gave a particular shout-out to the Central Football Club.
"[Central A-grade coach] Sheldon Hall brought a team out with him … the senior boys went in and helped our senior boys cook the barbecue and the girls were outstanding, selling 100 squares for a raffle we had," he said.
"They actually did it twice, because [the prize] was won by our president, so he donated it back and then they turned the board over and sold another hundred."
Mr Hall said having grown up playing football alongside Ryan's father Sam, it was a no-brainer to encourage his new club to pitch in.
"When the opportunity arose to go out and help them, I thought it would be a good way of giving back to Sam, having played a lot of footy with him," Mr Hall said.
"We want Central to be a club where we're not just a good bunch of blokes on the field, we want to be respected off the field in the community.
"It doesn't matter what club or what family, we're there to help regardless."
More than $11,000 raised
Mr Bird said the event raised $10,270 for the Lines family, which was "well and truly" above expectations.
"I was hoping for a couple of thousand or something like that, but the generosity of the Broken Hill people was unbelievable," he said.
"We also took another about $800 that night so the total was about $11,000, which is just an outstanding effort from everybody."
While he was not at the garage sale itself, Sam Lines visited the club that evening to express his appreciation for the club's ongoing support.
"He couldn't get over it. He just can't get over the generosity … he just knows everyone's behind him," Mr Bird said.
