Council voted last night to approve a funding request by family assistance charity Mums' Cottage to hold a celebration of its volunteers' hard work, including distributing food, clothing and essential items to those in need, and offering support to those affected by bushfires earlier this year.

The report noted the charity had been unable to undertake usual fundraising activities this year due to COVID-19.

But some councillors pointed out council made similar donations to the charity before the pandemic and questioned whether the money could be better used.

"It's a very good organisation and they do a lot of excellent things but... given we have a limited pool of funds, I think that a volunteer appreciation day/christmas function at the end of each year shouldn't necessarily qualify for funds," Cr Luke Cubis said.

"It just seems like some other organisations doing more than a lunch could maybe use the funds further.

"The commentary is completely separate to the title of the organisation, you can insert any organisation in there.

"I wonder how that would go down with the pub test with the ratepayers funding someone else's lunch."

However Cr John Gilbert said this was the first year the group had asked for the funding for this reason and it was not a big ask considering what they do for the community.

"This particular organisation has been worthy of funding previously, we've all unanimously agreed to fund it previously, certainly there's nothing outstandingly different about this organisation's activities now," Cr Gilbert said.

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