What We Do

Thank you for your help! Simon and Amy spoke at our 5 year Anniversary 2025

We marked the 5 year anniversary since the fires with 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 , which became 3 after we lost Kevin Perry. 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 change 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 assure you…

Amy will then hand back to me and I will talk a little about the community level recovery and what we have achieved in the last 5 years. Then I will also ‘attempt’ to thank as many people as we can who helped us get here.

We definitely don’t want this to be like an Oscars speech going on and on, and we know no matter how hard we try we won’t mention everyone.

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. Please go to our Thank You page here to read all of Simon’s speech.

Amy

Simon

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.