5 years on, Sarsfield thanks you all for your help!
We marked the 5 year anniversary since the fires, with a Twilight Market with music and children’s entertainment on January 11 2025.
A key part of the event was formal acknowledgements of the help we have received from a host of people since December 30 2019. Simon Hof was the president of the SCA after it formed in 2020, for two years , and he has remained very involved & is still on the committee.
Amy Fisher was a powerhouse immediately after the fires and found her strengths in the massive job of organising the volunteers (mostly Tradies) who wanted to help., and then the donated goods.
Simon Hof spoke first
Welcome everyone – so great to see so many people come out to Sarsfield. Before we start I just wanted to say… How good was Christine, great voice!
I would like to note that we are on the lands of the Gunaikurnai people and acknowledge their elders past and present.
Formally the first thing I wanted to say is - we don’t want these speeches to take too long and we want to make sure they celebrate all the positive changes that have happened since the black summer fires.
However it is very important that we note that on the 30th of December 2019 our community was changed forever. With 50% of the land mass burnt and 1 in 4 homes completely lost, our community was one of the most heavily impacted in the country. While not everyone has got to where they have wanted to since the fires, the community on the whole has risen to support each other and get us back on our feet – and those of us involved in the community recovery just think that is so amazing!
Shortly we will hear from Amy Fisher who (with many others) led an effort to get everyone back on their feet immediately after the fires. Amy will share some of her experiences and attempt to recognise and thank those who helped us get back on our feet. No small task I
Just know – know who ever you maybe we, Sarsfield, are forever grateful for whatever it is you did for us!
Following and to be honest during, this very intense and stressful time of getting our lives back together (that Amy will talk to), a few local people started to think about what recovery could look like from a Sarsfield or community perspective.
Recovery: From my point of view, I am forever grateful for these locals, for their foresight, energy and advocacy. Quickly these locals could see that if we didn’t self-organise things would be done to us, and not for us. Advocacy from this early group (a subgroup of the hall committee) was able to influence many things a great example is BRV Hub being sited in Sarsfield.
The subgroup of the hall committee quickly realised they need to become formalised and not connected to the Hall committee to take a seat at the recovery table and be recognised a Community Recovery Committee. This is where the Sarsfield Community Association (or the SCA) was born.
The SCA has worked hard over the last 5 years to get Sarsfield what it needs. A community plan was developed to give us direction and encourage investment. Throughout this hard work we have seen well over $4M invested in Sarsfield.
Priorities from the community plan indicated that Bringing people together and Developing our space were key priorities for the Sarsfield Community. So the SCA set out to deliver on these.
By this stage of the journey, we were becoming pretty good at bringing people together. So we kept doing what we were doing. Hosting events and providing opportunities for people to come together has been the cornerstone of how we roll.
We realised that holding the same type of event saw only a certain group of people attend to we looked for ways to mix it up offering different events for different people.
Some examples of events include
Our signature Friday Night Feeds which sometimes happen on other days! Many others but here’s a few because we’re celebrating 5 years of pulling together!
Book Making, Grand Final Event, New Years Eve, Halloween, Yoga Sessions, School Holiday program for kids’ Sandhill Ashes,
Women's Space Cuppa and Chat Sessions, Resident support Nights, Bushfire resilience Expo, Social Art Class, Brew Club, Paint and Sip
Cooking Classes’ PV Junior Ranger Program’ Mosaic Classes, Kokedama classes, Kayaking on the Nicholson River,
Christmas in July, Birds and Bugs citizen science session for young people', Giant Tomato growing comp, Fruit Tree Grafting, Darts Nights
Shire Library Van, Youth Activities afternoons, Summer Twilight Market, Playgroups and more.
We also learnt that people like to learn things while hanging out with their friends, neighbours and community.
so we began to put on training like:
Legal and Financial Workshops, Mental Health First Aid Training, Cultural Awareness Training, Canva Training, Governance Training
Safe Food Handling, First Aid Certificate, Responsible service of Alcohol, Chainsaw Training
As a committee we strongly believe that bringing people together in different ways has been a major factor in our success and we hope we can continue to do that, albeit in a different ways as support and funding of these activities is now much harder to access.
Simon continued, The other key area our community asked us to focus on was developing our space.
As a priority we took this to mean improving our only community asset - this hall and reserve area. Via a master plan we were able to identify a number of projects which could improve this site. If you look around now you can see some these now like:
Hall Projects, Tanks, an all abilities toilet, Cricket nets & pitch, storage shed, drinking fountain, stage 1 playground , CCTV, IT / Internet
And when it came to the hall itself.
A local structural engineer told us that our old hall cobbled together from 2 reused buildings was not worth renovating so we sort funding for a brand new ($3.7M) hall. Now getting that funding was a bit of a saga but I won’t go into that now. We are here to celebrate! But we got there and if you head into the hall now you can see the plans for the new hall on the wall.
Other key projects / initiatives which we are very proud of include; Our community newsletter the Sarsfield Snippets, Sarsfield Snaps – youth led photo project. Advocating for road safety within Sarsfield and Launching and maintaining a successful Website sarsfield.com.
Thank you’s
All levels of government Federal, State (via BRV, ERV, RDV, PHN), Local government - East Gippsland Shire Council (the bushfire recovery team and the infrastructure team for their help with the hall project).
Our local federal and state members of parliament. Other members of parliament which took an interest in our challenges getting the hall project funded.
Support from the existing groups within Sarsfield
Sarsfield Recreation Reserve COM & Local CFA (Mossi Tambo and Sarsfield brigades)
Our investors which includes the support we have had from the State and Federal and East Gippsland shire Council.
Gippsland Community Foundation
Connect Well & Gippsland Lakes Complete Health
East Gippsland Water
FRRR ( Foundation for Regional Renewal and Recovery.)
Services groups like Rotary and the Lions (and others)
Financial Counselling Victoria Gippsland Community Legal Service Gippsport, RFDS, Gippsland Local Learning and Employment Network Bairnsdale and Bruthen NH
Save the Children
Community groups (formal and informal) like Turkish Community of Melbourne,
The Sikh Volunteers Australia Inc
Local gardening groups especially Stan and Ann Barker (Lakes entrance Gardening Club)
Local Scouts
The local Thai, Filipinos via Weng Wengs and Indian - DesiGrill Communities (FNF) .
Not Profit Organisations like Red Cross
Soroptimists
Australian Relief Organisation Food Bank Victoria
Anglicare Victoria
3 local cricket clubs who helped with the Sandhill ashes
Local men’s sheds
There are so many more, but these are just a few
Local businesses who have directly funded things or provided their goods and services at reduced on no cost
Musicians from near & far, We have two great examples today.
OUR Mentor Malcolm Hackett from Strathewen.
Our friends and neighbours in near by communities like
Clifton Creek Community Recovery Team / Bruthen CRC
Thank you to all the volunteers who have made all this happen over the last 5 years. To the families and support networks of the volunteers who made it possible for people to volunteer.
Thank you to all of the committee members past and present of Sarsfield Community Association and its’ preceding group.
And finally, to you all, thank you to the community. Both the Sarsfield community and the broader east Gippsland community for trusting us for the last five years. For filling out surveys and turning up to events – without YOU ALL this wouldn’t be possible.
Hi my name is Amy Fisher
5 years have seen a lot of change since the fires, and I would like to give a bit of my own perspective and show my heartfelt gratitude to those that helped us get to this point along the way and acknowledge all the volunteers that have aided in in the recovery of Sarsfield
When the fires hit, I left my place as it is a no- through road and backs onto forest and decided to stay at my partners house who also in Sarsfield and help him defend his property, farm and livestock.
Firstly, the very first day after the fires we were given a generator to run tank water thanks to Rivera Christian center and then thanks to Brendan Wakefield delivering round of hay and checking in.
Neighbours checking in on each other and keeping a lookout for looters as that became a real problem.
My timeline is a little muddled, but these are a few things as I remember them.
In the first week things were surreal, hours turned into days, and I was really unsure of what day it was.
Jo Andrews, as a SRRCoM committee member, opened the hall as it had power, toilet facilities and a communal area for residents to go. The first week saw shopping bags of goodies delivered to the hall. After a day or so, realizing that many people may not be aware of this, Debbie Van der Peet and I loaded the back of my car with the shopping bags and bottled water and started go door to door, it was then we started to meet many people and hear of their stories, gather a contact list of people staying in the area and get the word out about the hall being open as many didn't have power. Other locals soon joined us and we made sure all the streets in Sarsfield were covered.
This soon led to the Friday night feeds from feedback gathered from residents, they were initially held every week and were only possible due to volunteers such as Wendi Carter and Janine Pratt who were there every week and made sure it all ran smoothly. (Their value was so apparent that the SCA still continues to run as many community events as possible and will continue to do so even as funding dries up)
The amount of donated goods delivered to Lucknow Hall was incredible and everyone there was amazingly helpful when you went.
In the first couple of weeks post the fires some amazing people organised loads of hay to be delivered farmers in need, much of this hay coming from their own personal stores. Jim Armstrong from the Men's shed in Labourtche arranged this initial delivery.
The Sikh community supplied hot meals at the Bairnsdale football oval every day for those who were sheltering there.
Bairnsdale Rotary Sunrise arranged for shipping containers to be delivered so residents had somewhere to store their belongings, Dahlens donated loads of buckets, wheelbarrows, rakes and shovels to residents to assist in clean up.
Samaritans Purse came to help in the area and there are many stories of them sifting through the ashes and finding much loved treasure people thought were lost forever.
It wasn't long after that I needed some dangerous trees removed, they had been fire damaged and threated to fall on my house, fortunately I met the Amazing Mal Neville and the team who had been travelling to Clifton Creek offering his assistance. When Mal and his crew came through Sarsfield and saw the devastation fist hand he asked if I knew anyone else that needed his arborist skills and everything developed from there, for a few weeks this continued, Mal and the team would come to my house for lunch after a busy day.
I met Travis or Terry who asked me to get in touch with Rob Johnstone who had been coming down with a group organized he had created and organised through Facebook called East Gippsland community support. They had also been working at Clifton Creek and came to then offered to help in Sarsfield. From there on, the group would travel to Sarsfield every weekend camping on the oval and helping the residents.
So many of them worked full-time jobs during the week and then drove down Friday to help out Saturday and Sunday, before returning home.
This became a regular weekend event, and my amazing Mum Helen Fisher saw all of this and asked what she could do. My Mum arranged some more people and they and set about catering every weekend so the tradies had a good feed and the energy to do the heavy lifting as to speak. And EVERYONE still to this day when we chat tell just how good the food was. Thanks, MUM.
Again, this could not have been achievable without the amazing support and donations from the Woolies (which was Safeway then) thanks to Alan the manager, Lucke’s Bairnsdale thanks David Lucke and Lois from Lucke’s who made cakes and slices for the volunteers, Lions club who provided gift cards to purchase supplies, ADRA for weekly food donations.
I contacted the Bushfire Recovery Victoria who supplied showers and extra toilets and bin collection at the hall. Graham at East Gippsland hire donated the use of a mobile fridge to use for as long as needed
I was then contacted by 2 more amazing people, Piers and Jackson who had the tradies for fire affected groups and wanted to arrange a weekend event to help the Sarsfield residents with assistance from Deloitte.
This led to the Biggest Working Bee, held on the long Labor Day weekend March 2020. Over 90 volunteers converged on little Sarsfield to lend a hand. Including the scouts' group from Strzelecki and Bairnsdale, Seaford football club and the Melbourne Storm to run a clinic in Bairnsdale in the morning before heading the Sarsfield to help-out. After a few pushbacks from a couple of committee members the event almost didn't go ahead, I managed to achieve the necessary steps to get the event up and running with the help of Alan Knewstubb who always had my back. Thanks Alan and to Steve Boyce from the Lions group who were happy to have the event run under their insurance
It was a busy weekend coordinating jobs and people, but it all ran very smoothly, and it was a great successful and rewarding day. I met some truly remarkable humans who went about doing anything and everything they could, with one guy named Matt who is a plumber, who was able to restore water supply to multiple properties who, 10 weeks after the fires, were still without access to running water. That same weekend saw another load of much needed hay brought in for a number of farms including The Filmer's, Coster’s and Seehusen's farms.
In between this time, I had been coordinating with Blaze Aid and met a few different camp coordinators, making sure we worked together and not going to the same properties or working alongside each other
I also met the amazing Dawn, Maisey, Bill and Russell from Our Kinda Country Club in Traralgon who had gathered a massive amount of donations and needed someone to distribute all the goods. And so, my new garage became the drop off point and distribution center for people to come and take what they needed. SOOOO many Hours were spent sorting through the donated goods and trying to come up with some sort of organisation. Massive thanks to my son Noah, Pete, Dad, Mum, Debbie, Andrew, Neighbours, Wendy and Janene. This soon became too much so that the garage wasn't big enough and a member of the Rotary group donated me a shipping container and then there were 2 40 ft shipping containers full of donated goods! It was a mammoth effort to arrange shift and sort through. When covid hit and Blaze aid had to close they also send all the things my way to distribute. Covid stopped the tradies visiting but I have kept in touch with as many as I can.
To anyone I may have missed my apologies to you, as I know there were so many who did so much to help and we are forever grateful to you all.
Shout out to Traralgon Men's Shed who made chopping boards, kids picnic tables and bench seats which were donated to Sarsfield residents
I know it's been a long speech but there are so many people that volunteered their time to get Sarsfield where it is today and so I want to just same a heartfelt and massive thank you all the volunteers for everything you did for us all, and for everyone who supported me along the way.
