BRUCE Hancock knows firsthand the lasting beneficial effect Legacy has on the families of Australian service personnel.
Legacy is one of the charity partners, along with the Cronulla War Widows Guild, in the 2015 Australia Day celebrations.
Mr Hancock was three when his ex-serviceman father died.
"My mother was 28, with four children under nine, when my father died in March 1950," Mr Hancock said.
"Dad had been mobilised in March 1941 and was shipped to New Guinea in July 1942. After contracting malaria, his health severely deteriorated, leading to recurring malaria, and developing chronic nephritis and ureamia.
"He was medically evacuated back to Australia in December 1942, and after much hospitalisation he was discharged 'medically unfit' in December 1943.
"After many episodes in Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital, Brisbane, my father died from the effects of chronic nephritis and uraemia in March 1950, six months before my fourth birthday.
"Because of my young age, I don't recall the scope of support provided by Legacy in those early years but I do know that it was extremely difficult for a war-widowed single parent with a young family to survive on government support alone."
Mr Hancock's mother remarried and the family moved from Queensland to Cronulla in 1956.
Over the next 10 years, Legacy helped Mr Hancock and his siblings.
"Legacy was there for us in our growing years," he said.
Legacy is a uniquely Australian not-for-profit organisation, operating across each state with responsibility for just on 10,000 dependants of deceased or incapacitated Australian Defence Force personnel. Nationally, that figure is 90,000.
Legacy assisted Mr Hancock as he studied for his trade apprenticeship.
"As a mark of my gratitude to Legacy, I became a Legatee with the St George Sutherland Division of Sydney Legacy, in August 2013, to help care for the dependants of deceased and incapacitated service personnel.
"Additionally, I have provisioned for a gift to Legacy in my will to help Legacy keep the promise to future generations."
The division covers a large geographical area and contains the highest number of Legacy dependants of all the NSW divisions.
"Geographically, we cover a broad region — south of Wolli Creek out to Riverwood, down to Heathcote, and then north back along the coastline to the Cooks River.
"Within the division, we support just under 2000 dependants, including widows, children and dependants with a disability.
"While we have widows in their 80s, we are getting younger widows and children who have lost a husband and father [who served in] the latter conflicts of Iraq, East Timor and Afghanistan, so our work goes on."
