WHEN Carrum Downs Community Bank chairman Gary Rowe was driving his children to school last week, he heard on radio 3AW the story of a Rosebud woman unable to afford drugs to treat a brain tumour.

Cost of the drugs, not available through PBS, was $2100 a treatment.

Friends of Ann Marie Taylor and her husband Adrian had been holding sausage sizzles to try to raise the money.

Mr Taylor had been paying for the treatment on his credit card. The couple – childhood sweethearts since Ann Marie was 14, now 36, with three children aged one, four and 11 – were in trouble. Ann Marie had been given four weeks to live if a new drug did not work.

Mr Rowe rang around fellow bank directors to seek approval to pay for 10 treatments from the bank's community support fund.

The grant was approved. Mr Rowe went on air. Phones at the station and at the bank ran hot with congratulations and other offers.

Another drug company offered to provide treatment free and pay off the credit card debt; pledges made on air then dried up. But not the bank's. "I then realised how many others were in a similar situation – unable to pay for treatment," Mr Rowe said.

"It occurred to me that with the support of Bendigo Bank branches we could set up a foundation. If branches chipped in $50,000 we would have up to $4 million."

With the backing of Bendigo Bank, Mr Rowe went back on air to talk about the new foundation to help people who were falling through the cracks of the system – to buy them extra time with their families. Staff at the Carrum Downs bank were overwhelmed by calls and emails – one customer banked a very large sum to help cover the grant.

On Friday, Mr Rowe and company secretary Malcolm Wells went to Rosebud to meet Ann Marie, Adrian and their hardworking friends at a fund-raising sausage sizzle outside Bunnings.

They made arrangements to transfer the $21,000 and worked out how to give them a holiday.

"This has been an incredibly stressful time for them," Mr Rowe said. "A break would be a relief – somewhere close like Phillip Island in case medical treatment is urgently needed."

Ann Marie Taylor is grateful that other people will benefit from her situation. She is due to have a scan this week to see if the treatment is working.

Donations to the Extra Time Foundation can be made at any branch of the Bendigo Bank.