Cheryl Oliver
Leader, Slow Food Yarra Ranges – Mount Dandenong convivium
13 Feb 2009
OUR communities in the Yarra Valley have been decimated and so far it is difficult to know who has been affected from our Yarra Valley convivia, as many people are still at community centres or staying in tents at football grounds. Many of our local food producers and growers have suffered huge losses and it will take a long time for them to regain what has been lost. We are doing as much as we can in our local area to help, but people have only been allowed back into some of the affected areas over the past day or so. We are donating our products to fundraising events and will be heading up to Alexandra early next week with the folk from Holmesglen Technical and Further Education College to deliver food and meals to the locals and firefighters. Our local school here at Kallista is collecting bed linen and towels, and my grandson’s school in Lilydale is collecting groceries to make up hampers, which it intends to do continuously for the next six months, as these bushfire victims are going to need support long after the fires are out. Perhaps on a local level some of you may be able to supply goods for fundraising events to go to the Red Cross bushfire appeal. Or call the Red Cross and find out exactly what help is needed in the form of goods and then form a group to collect up whatever is needed. The Yarra Valley and Yarra Ranges are still under considerable fire threat, as is much of Victoria, and I think this is far from over.
Alison Peake
Leader, Slow Food Melbourne
15 Feb 2009
FABULOUS to know that people all over the country want to help our Victorian producers, many of whom have lost their livelihoods…and meagre livelihoods they were in many cases anyway, with 12 years of drought and that awful hot weather with temperatures over 40 degrees celsius which cooked crops even before the fires came.
The Collingwood Children’s Farm Farmers’ Market (in central Melbourne) went ahead yesterday with all proceeds going to bushfire relief as well as a mammoth fundraising effort, spearheaded by Slow Food members Miranda Sharp from Gippsland and Rosa Mitchell from Melbourne. At this stage I would suggest Slow Food try and find a way of networking with our Victorian producers to find out what help is going to make the most difference to them in both the short and long term. The Red Cross have done a fabulous job, as has the Salvation Army, in getting immediate emergency relief in place. These organisations will undoubtedly be involved in the next stage of re-housing people, most of whom want to stay within their local communities. The next big challenge for farmers and producers is how to re-stock and re-establish. Water, or lack of it, is going to be a major impediment.
Slow Food Melbourne will work directly with our farmers’ market stallholders to see what their communities and food producers need that we can assist with directly. Another area where we will aim to work with them is to support their local Country Fire Authority volunteer brigades. The fires are not out yet and many of these producers are also CFA volunteers who have been working for over a week now trying to keep their farms operational, as well as taking responsibility for fighting fires and protecting their neighbours and community. They are exhausted physically and emotionally. Many fought to save others while their own homes and properties burned. There are stock losses, fences gone, machinery sheds and equipment incinerated…and in the short term many are just plain traumatised and don’t know where to start to rebuild. While the emergency services will work with them in the short term, I would hope that Slow Food in Australia will work together to offer some long term solutions and also think carefully about where we put our resources, and when they are ready for it we would like to do it very much on a local level where hopefully it will do the most good. In the meantime we must not forget the CFAs – as well as the bigger agencies – as they are still working with volunteer labour to protect their own communities, without them this disaster would have been even worse.
Thank you.
Judith Sweet
Leader, Slow Food Hobart
15 Feb 2009
SLOW Food Hobart is having discussions about our support for those affected by the bushfires. I think that we will make a donation to one or some of the schools to assist with getting their kitchen gardens going again. We will wait a while until we are clear which schools in the affected areas are most in need of the help. If there is anything that we can do immediately please be in touch. Many of us have personally contributed to the Red Cross and Salvation Army appeals. I am working with The Mercury newspaper and have supplied some simple, robust cake and biscuit recipes which we are asking people to cook and take to a collection point where they will be collected and transported to Victoria for some morning tea sustenance for all the Country Fire Authority workers and volunteers. I am still working on the details but hopefully this will eventuate this week or next. Elaine Reeves, our treasurer, and a journalist with The Mercury, has made a suggestion that a ‘basic kitchen equipment kit’ register is set up at one of the national stores, and that people could donate to that (rather like a wedding register). We have briefly discussed that Slow Food Hobart may be able to assist with packaging those kits that are donated in Tasmania. If it is to go ahead it would be a national proposal suggested by News Limited.
Margie Benbow
Leader, Slow Food Albury-Wodonga
19 Feb 2009
SLOW Food Albury-Wodonga is currently working with Hume Murray Food Bowl to host an event to raise funds to support the Country Fire Authority brigades still working so tirelessly in our region. The fires in our region claimed two lives and burnt 17 houses as well as the stock, fencing, feed and machinery losses. We will keep you posted on whats happening in our region, we are far from over fire risk here as we are tinder dry and still experiencing hot and windy conditions. Great to know of the fabulous efforts from all of Slow Food around Australia.
Rosie Cupitt
Leader, Slow Food Shoalhaven
19 Feb 2009
WE are very sorry for the devastating loss of life and property in Victoria and find it hard to comprehend the situation that people in those regions are facing. As a small contribution Slow Food Shoalhaven will donate $250 to the bush fire appeal. My friends at Roundstone Winery in the Yarra Valley were completely burnt out, but lucky to survive. They had to drive through the flames to escape. Some of their neighbours died in the blaze. I believe Lyn held the opening event for Slow Food Yarra Valley at her restaurant when it was launched and shares the Slow Food philosophy.