It has been a horrendous summer for fires, and then floods, with countless people and animals affected.

Members of WMK have been working hard with BlazeAid and Animal Rescue Craft Guild to help as much as they can.

BlazeAid is a volunteer-based organisation that works with farmers and families in rural Australia after natural disasters.

Alexandra Glaverina and a few of her friends went to Wingham in NSW to spend a weekend working alongside the rural families to help them re-build fences that had been damaged or destroyed in the bushfires.  

Small to medium-sized farms usually cannot afford costly insurance, so with their fences destroyed, there is often a wait period of 2-3 years and a cost of tens-of-thousands of dollars to have them repaired. Also, with one Bull per-50 cattle, if a Bull is lost due to lack of adequate fencing, farmers also risk losing their herd.

The work Lexi and her friends achieved in 1.5 days saved the farmer 6 months of personal labour to repair the fencing. This involved clearing the burnt bush, removing the old fence, and building a new fence. The response by farmers has been overwhelming,

“We asked you to come help us rebuild our fences but you guys have done way more than that, you have helped us rebuild our broken community.  For that we are forever grateful to you and all the amazing volunteers”

Animal Rescue Craft Guild facilitates sewing, knitting, crocheting ‘everything’ to make products that help animals.

In their own time, creative crafties, Alexandra Glaverina, Brittney Rohan, Belinda McHarg, Kylie Heslop, Alison Gibb, & Vicky Pang have been busy knitting, sewing and crocheting joey pouches and birds’ nests.  WMK purchased all of the supplies required to get this going.

A huge thank you to this incredible team.