The vehicles have each undergone a major facelift with their trays repainted and the logos and messaging of Where There’s A Will and the Singleton Cancer Council being displayed with pride.

Ravensworth will donate $1 to the charities from each load carried by the trucks during 2018 in a fundraising initiative that’s expected to dump as much as $20,000 into the bank accounts of each group.  

At the official unveiling of the new-look trucks, Where There’s A Will founder Pauline Carrigan was moved to tears as she described the truck as the biggest trophy yet in her campaign to raise awareness about mental health; in particular suicide prevention.

“The very first government official I spoke to when I first began this journey told me people don’t like to talk about mental health,” she said.

“Well two years later, here we are and what this truck represents is the fact people are not only starting to talk about mental health but we are making great strides in our campaign with our organisation now being involved with TAFE and talking to apprentices about their mental health.”

Mrs Carrigan said the aim of Where There’s A Will was to be as successful in their mental health awareness campaign as the Cancer Council has been in its Slip Slop Slap message.

Her son Will died by suicide two years ago and Mrs Carrigan said the last time she saw him, he was wearing the obligatory sunwise big hat, zinc and sunscreen.

“Will knew how to protect himself from the sun and we want to teach people how best to protect themselves and others in the community from self harm related to mental health issues,” she said.

“Raising awareness, and that’s what this dump truck does every time its moving around mine, will make a difference to peoples lives.”

Ravensworth operations manager Tony Morris said the novel proposal built on the site’s partnerships with the two service groups.

“We believe that these two amazing support groups provide an essential service to the community, and the idea of using the haul truck loads to raise money is something that our workforce can be very proud of,” he explained.

“Our goal is to deliver $20,000 for each charity: in a typical shift, our haul trucks complete approximately 30 loads which equates to around 21,000 loads a year, so we’re very confident of achieving the target.”

Ravensworth began a partnership with Where There’s A Will in 2017, kicking off its support with a mental health charity ball held in July that raised a total of $50,000.

Ravensworth has also been a supporter of the Cancer Council for more than five years, with donations to the charity currently topping $80,000.

The brainwave for the idea to give the dump trucks a makeover came from the mine’s maintenance department with its boss Darren Meyer saying a group of them got together and discussed the idea and then worked on getting it approved and implemented.

Each truck was painted by Induspray and the stickers were made by Kevin Martin.