Footballers Greg Mitchell and Mick Sutton have kicked a goal against the run of play.
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In Santa suits and elf hats, with their mates they went on a pub crawl on Saturday through Queanbeyan in what has become an off-season tradition for many footballers.
![Soaking up Christmas cheers to help Vinnies Soaking up Christmas cheers to help Vinnies](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/3a1c2b11-4431-40d7-816a-ac5b83ea445d.jpg/r0_0_729_386_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Instead of causing trouble, as footballers have a reputation for doing, they collected $600 for the St Vincent de Paul Society.
A relief school teacher, Mitchell said he was out of work and did not have a Christmas party to attend this year.
''I thought, well I'd throw a Christmas party anyway and it just snowballed from there,'' he said
''We thought we'd go out and raise a bit of money too for someone else at this time of the year.''
The centre half-forward for Australian rules football team Harman Hogs, Mitchell had help from Sutton, a second-rower for the Queanbeyan Roos rugby league team.
''Everywhere we went was really good, everyone was receptive,'' Mitchell said.
''They were questioning what we were raising money for at first, understandably.
''Every one was willing to throw in a few dollars after we explained what we were actually doing.''
St Vincent de Paul Society, Archdiocese of Canberra/Goulburn chief executive Bob Wilson said tough times people were more cautious giving money to charity.
''They know they've got to work within a limit of income, and that also reflects on the amount of money they can donate to someone else in need,'' he said.
Mr Wilson said this year's St Vinnies Christmas appeal theme was ''How will you spend this Christmas?''
''That theme has made people sit up and realise, well, we don't need to be first to own a glass television set or the iPod or anything like that,'' he said.
''If someone else is in need we might be able to provide a small amount of money to help someone who is less fortunate than them.''
The society handed out 1200 Christmas hampers across the territory at the weekend, including gifts to lone adults and children of families in need, and food vouchers.
''We've had a lot of cash donations and a lot of workplace giving trees have taken place, so that we have been able to respond pretty well to all the requests for assistance we have received this year,'' he said.
He said cash donations were appropriate to help people pay utility bills, or one-off expenses like a doctor's bill or repairs for a broken down car.
Donations can be made at St Vincent de Paul stores or by going to its www.vinnies.org.au website.