Over 5000 donations to Lifeline Canberra have helped bring the total funds raised to $500,000, after the organisation made the call to cancel its weekend bookfair on Friday.
The bookfair was to be held at Exhibition Park, but the decision to cut it short was made after abuse was directed at visitors and volunteers on Friday by some members of a group protesting against vaccine mandates, as well as the destruction of fences overnight.
"We weren't expecting the community to get behind an online donation campaign, but it's been such a wonderful outcome [in a weekend that's] been overshadowed by negativity around the bookfair," Lifeline Canberra Chief Executive Officer Carrie-Ann Leeson said.
"The volunteers and the staff are very, very grateful to the community for still getting behind Lifeline Canberra."
The expected revenue for the bookfair was around $800,000, Ms Leeson said, adding that the donations from community members after the cancellation had really helped.
On Friday, $250,000 had been raised.
"We're almost halfway to what we would have achieved had we been able to run for the full three days."
Ms Leeson said the cancellation was still a great disappointment, with volunteers having to do "a bookfair in reverse", packing up books to send back to the warehouse.
"It's all manner of emotions and reactions ... some are sad, some are angry," she said.
"They've obviously put in a lot of work over eight to 10 months to get this bookfair up and running."
"[But] to see this amount of support and to read about it online has probably been the one thing that's made the team at Lifeline Canberra, the crisis supporters and the bookfair volunteers feel much better about what's happened."
The next bookfair is likely to be in September, with celebrations for the organisations 50th anniversary likely to take place then.
Donations can be made at lifelinecanberra.org.au, while Ms Leeson said that anyone seeking crisis support could reach it on 13 11 14.
