Liz Spicer helped establish a national Prayer for Rain Day during the millennium drought, worked as a trauma counsellor during Black Saturday bushfires at places such as Kinglake, St Andrews and Strathewen, and became a flood counsellor in 2022.
Liz is ostensibly a chaplain at the Kyabram P-12 school, but has worked extensively in other capacities, often in her own time.
She was named as an OAM in Friday’s Australia Day honours list.
LIz acknowledged the strong community support behind her position which has allowed her to reach a lot of people.
“I am a community chaplain, incredibly, so generously, supported by the whole Kyabram community, and that means the town has a say in how we operate and a seriously big hand in anything we are able to achieve,” she said.
“As a representative of my community I am just another face in the crowd, and while I do truly appreciate that someone would consider me worthy of this, I genuinely see this as a testament to Kyabram, which has raised money and supported the chaplaincy program, expecting nothing back but wanting to really help people doing it tough.
A lifelong Christian, Liz cannot remember any time in her life which did not revolve around a church and the community it served.
The daughter of a local government executive, she was born in Cobram and moved around the state with the family.
She came to Kyabram on a placement as a social worker but was convinced by colleagues to switch to chaplaincy.
She has helped countless students through the challenges of school and teenage years, and many she has worked with still stay in contact with her because of those connections.
For years she was devoted to the national Prayer for Rain Day and is a former national co-ordinator of the drought relief committee, as well as a Victoria Police chaplain.
Some of the most vital work she does is rarely, if ever, seen or fully understood.
At these times, the public face of Liz Spicer, OAM, disappears behind closed doors as she privately, respectfully, hands out school uniforms and books to struggling students, cash to help families pay for excursions, and dressing seniors for their deb balls (and lifelong memories).
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