Helloooooooooo Everybody!
There is an update coming tomorrow about what we have been up to here at Fealy Family HQ over the last 8 or so months (eeeeek) since we last posted, but today I want to share a post that has been desperate to hit the blog for months now!
Here goes ……………………………………..
At the end of June we hosted a ‘Boots for Change’ dinner here on the farm. It was an amazing night, that took a lot of work to pull together and a few cranky moments/grey hairs in the 24 hours before the event, but an awesome experience for us. Here’s a few photos to show you how it went down.
So, what was it all about and how did we get involved at Blue Sky Produce?
It’s a bit of a long story, but basically I came across the ABC Youth Heywire Grants in my many hours spent on the internet and thought it would be awesome to have a local group win one. So I forwarded the details out to a few local ladies I knew and luckily for me Erica from Northern Gulf Resource Management was as excited about the opportunity as I was! She did all the hard work with the Gulf Youth in Ag kids and put the grant application in. A few months later and the exciting news that the grant was successful!
You can read all about how the ‘Boots for Change’ concept started here. The Gulf Youth in Ag team ‘tweaked’ the concept a little to come up with an awesome idea of a local produce dinner under the stars and we were thrilled to work with them to host the event on the farm at Blue Sky. It was even more exciting when it was confirmed that Paul West from River Cottage Australia would be attending as the guest speaker!!
The major goal of the night was really to promote local produce (with all food used for the dinner sourced locally on the Tablelands) and to highlight sustainable farming practices and family farming. As well as to get our local youth involved with, and excited about, the opportunities the agriculture industry offers today. Oh – and to have some fun too of course!
Many months and lots of hard work by Erica and the Gulf Youth in Ag team later and the weekend of the big event arrived. A special shout out needs to go to Leeandra from Love Lee Cooking – our local chef who did all the hard work sourcing all of the local produce for the dinner and catering for the over 200 people who attended. Pretty spectacular really given she did it all from the front of our mango shed!
The amazing Leeandra bringing out meals from the back of the ute on the night!
This is also a great article from the North Queensland Register newspaper that went our prior to the event.
Here’s a few pics of the 24 hours of setting up it took to get everything ready – note the overcast weather on the morning of set up – had us a little worried for a while!
Everything came together in the end (mostly) and it was an awesome night. The bar on the night was run by Lucy Gava who lived on the farm here at Blue Sky as a child with her family so it was kind of nice to have that connection involved too. We had lots of fun, despite a few hiccups with our entree not being able to come out until nearly 8pm and the weather was quite cool on the night which meant the meals went cold very quickly being transported on the back of the ute from the shed out to the paddock where the dinner was.
However, reports were that it was all still delicious and everybody enjoyed the night. We sure did – we didn’t get to bed until 5am the next morning! We had to introduce Paul West to QLD Bundaberg Rum of course!!!
Was so great to meet Paul West – what a great guy – this pic was taken at the start of the night – hehehe!
Here’s the final batch of pics to close the post out. I don’t think they do justice to just how pretty things looked on the night!
Oh – I nearly forgot the ‘Best Boots’ competition! This was a really fun part of the night and we were thrilled when Charlie (our farm hand here at Blue Sky) was chosen as the winner!
Cleaning up and packing down the next day after a 5am finish was VERY hard work, but luckily, many hands made light work. Check out the weather though!! The rain came in the next morning – how lucky we were to have such nice weather the night before!
Some great family memories were made on the night too – a few more treasures to add to the vault 🙂
So now the question that needs to be asked – should we do it all again in 2017???
A special thanks to these farms that provided produce on the night – this was as many as I can remember – sorry if I have left anybody out!
Lecker Farming
Tolga Peanuts
Collins Farms
Christie’s Tomatoes
WoW!!! I so wish I was there Jess….what an amazing event that you helped pull off. A real feather in your cap. Very inspired & so good for the community ?
OH MY GOD, Jess! You are mad!!!! 200 hundred people!!!!! LOL!!! …. Good on you and the team for holding such a successful event. And yes, you have to do it again, next year, just so you can put your learnings into practice…LOL!!!!!