Rebuilding hope after the bushfires.

When bushfires tore across our state this summer, the devastation was enormous. So too was the response. As heartbroken communities begin to rebuild, they know they’re not alone – thanks to the kindness and support of people like you.

“We’ve been cried on, we’ve heard stories, we’ve held space, we’ve given cuddles,” says Tash, who runs Skipton food bank, one of Foodbank Victoria’s charity partners, which has become a hub of hope for a community still reeling from the devastating January bushfires.

When the fires burned across the state this summer, more than 300 homes were destroyed and over 1,100 farms damaged. Some 45,000 livestock were killed: beef cattle, dairy cattle, horses and sheep. A total of 150,518 hectares of precious farming land burnt and destroyed.

We now understand the extent of this catastrophe. For our farming communities, the agricultural impact of these bushfires has been even bigger than the Black Saturday fires.

“The impact out on the fireground was pretty severe, pretty traumatic,” says Tash. “We lost 15 houses, hundreds and thousands of kilometres of fencing, a lot of stock. A lot of crops because we were right in the middle of harvest. All the feed, fodder…there were sheds exploding around people.”

At first, the volunteer-run pantry was providing emergency relief, borrowing a local mini-van to distribute bottled water, hampers and snacks to famers. Now, they are concentrating on recovery, and they’ve seen demand grow from around 40 families to 198 families seeking food support.

“We’ve got a lot more families in town coming in. They would’ve never come in before, out of pride. Now the stigma seems to have gone,” she explains. “People came for one thing – eye drops, first aid kits – and once they saw what was there, and what people were donating specifically for them, they were like ‘Oh, I might have spaghetti for tea’. And they’d walk out with their arms full, which is just amazing.”

Tash knows first-hand how hard it can be to ask for help. It’s why she launched the Skipton food bank, under the auspice of Camperdown Community House, last April. “I’ve been poor, so I’ve needed food pantries before,” she says. “I just thought, living out here, you can’t drive 50 minutes to get help if you can’t afford food.”

She also understands what it takes to rebuild, to recover from a natural disaster. Her own home was gutted by the 2022 floods in the historic town – and she still hasn’t replaced everything that was lost. “This is long term. We’ve promised them that we’ll be here long term,” she says. “I’ve told them: I’ll fill your cupboards. Spices…all of that stuff takes time.”

Tash has been doing a stellar job of supporting her community, but says she couldn’t have done it without her team – and without your help. “Foodbank have been phenomenal. A lot of food came from Foodbank. And then there’s just their support: What do I do? How do I deal with this? How do I handle this?” she says. “There are so, so many beautiful people in the world.”