THE DRY and devastating conditions out west have continued over the past few months, pushing many Australian farmers to the brink.
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They haven’t seen rain for months. Dams have dried up, land that was once green is now dust, livestock are hungry and many farmers are without their own basic necessities to afford feed for their animals.
Our farmers, who are the backbone of our country, are struggling.
The devastation is profound and the situation out west has touched Australians across the country, including Kempsey.
Over the past month there has been a snowball effect of locals rallying together to raise money, donate toiletries and food, raise funds to purchase livestock feed and volunteering to conduct hay runs out west.
It started off small, with a toiletry donation point at Kempsey Stock & Land for individuals and businesses to donate any new and unused toiletries.
Related content: Kempsey Stock and Land helps Aussie farmers
Samantha Hughes from Kempsey Stock & Land said the response from the community had been amazing.
“It’s been overwhelming. I didn’t think we would get this many donations, and now we’re onto our fourth trailer load,” she said.
The generosity shown by the community has been immense. On Tuesday, Kempsey Stock & Land received an anonymous donation of $2500 that will go towards purchasing Pre-Paid Visa cards for farmers and their families to use in their local communities.
As well as being a donation point for toiletries, at the Kempsey Stock & Land Annual all Breeds Bull and Stud Female Sale this Saturday, the showgirls will have a cake stall and a 100 club to raise funds for the Buy a Bale drought appeal.
Director of O’Donnell & Hanlon, Trent O’Donnell, will also donate a bull from his Oakland Park Angus cattle stud. The final sale price of the bull will be donated to the Macleay Hay Run organised by L-Bo Butchery owner Josh Ball.
Mr Ball organised the feed run after he posted a Facebook status asking for Macleay farmers to donate one or two bales each for a hay run he is planning with his father’s truck.
In one day, the post gained over 200 likes and 300 shares.
The interest from the community led to Mr Ball starting an account where people can donate money to go towards purchasing bales for the hay run.
“In 24 hours we had 86 bales donated and had raised $3000 to buy more. It puts us at about 266 bales, which is six truck loads. I thought I’d only be doing one run out there but the response has been overwhelming,” Mr Ball said.
“It has gone beyond my expectations, the support is amazing.”
Mr Ball is working with Aussie Helpers who will be distributing the bales to the farmers out west.
“The first truck load is going to an elderly lady outside Tamworth who just lost her husband and doesn’t have any money to buy hay for her 80 cows,” Mr Ball said.
Owner of Frewen Contracting, Brendon Frewen, is donating 40 bales left over from properties he has baled.
Mr Frewen, himself a farmer, said any amount of generosity will help the western farmers.
“Although this won’t solve all of their problems, it will offer some relief and a bit of time to breathe,” Mr Frewen said.
Tim Smith from West Kempsey Hotel is also lending a helping hand, by organising a trivia night to raise funds as well as getting other hotels involved in the fundraising.
“Kempsey Stock & Land is helping out in regards to food and toiletries, Josh is focusing on livestock feed and hay runs and I want to focus on fundraising. We each have different skill sets that can be used together,” Mr Smith said.
In four minutes after posting a Facebook status gauging interest in the idea of a trivia night and feed run last week, Mr Smith had an offer by a local to use their truck.
“In 36 hours we had four truck offers and people wanting to know more information about the trivia night to raise funds,” he said.
At this stage Mr Smith hopes to host the trivia night in September.
“I think it’s good to space it out a bit and give people a little break from donating. The drought isn’t going to go away in the next few weeks, we need to continue to help, so having the trivia night a bit later works really well,” he said.
Samantha, Josh and Tim are planning to all come under the same banner to remove confusion about where and to who locals donate.
“We’re all pointing in the same direction, it makes sense for us to come together under the Macleay Hay Run banner,” Mr Smith said.
Kempsey Race Club is also getting behind the cause and is asking for a gold coin donation admission for its race meet on July 30. The club will also donate all of the admissions from the August 4 race meet to the Macleay Hay Run.
At the time of publication,100 bales have been donated and monetary contributions have reached $12,000 which will be used to purchase a further 252 bales.
To find out how you can help, visit the Macleay Hay Run page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/macleayhayrun/
