An enthusiastic and thirsty crowd rolled up to Wee Waa’s Imperial Hotel last Tuesday night for a cracking event called ‘A beer on the city’.
Country wedding photographer and rural advocate Edwina Robertson and Channel 7 television presenter Sammie O’Brien stopped by the Cotton Capital as part of their drought relief road trip around northern NSW.
The dynamic duo are representing the charity Drought Angels and they’ve been visiting farms by day and shouting the bar at local pubs by night, thanks to the generosity of city-based sponsors who want to help ease the pain of these dry and dusty times by encouraging farming communities to catch up and have a fun night out.
“We would really like to thank Luke Noble and his team for saying ‘yes’ and letting us put on this event,” Edwina Robertson told the Wee Waa crowd.
“We’re so glad to see all your faces here.”
Sammie and Edwina both currently live in Brisbane but they have strong connections in the bush and wanted to lend a hand during the drought. So the clever young women hatched a plan and approached some generous sponsors .
“We know how important socialising is during these tough times,” said Edwina.
“And how important it is to get people out and away from their properties and away from their businesses, and just to have a reason to go out and see your mates, catch up with neighbours and friends – so that’s how the whole concept came around,” said Edwina.
“There’s a minimum $1000 on the bar tab and I think we’ll go past that so a round of applause for our sponsors.”
Edwina and Sammie were dressed up and looking fabulous at the Wee Waa party but they also aren’t afraid to get a little dust on their boots and have spent a fair chunk of their trip calling into properties and catching up with farming families on behalf of the charity Drought Angels.
“Drought Angels is really important to us purely because of what they stand for – they’re solely focused on giving back to rural communities and helping farming families.
“They’ve currently got over 4000 farming families on their books – 70 per cent of those families are based in NSW.
“And they’re getting around 50 new farming families on their books every week and I expect that’s only going to grow until the drought actually breaks,” said Edwina.
“Drought Angels is really big on putting money back into rural communities because they know that for every dollar that is spent in a rural town that dollar is circulated up to seven times. So the value of that one dollar goes a long way.
“Drought Angels is run by women, they’re a charity with a big heart and they play massively under the radar so they’re not very well known – that’s why we’re here representing them, trying to show the great work that they do and let communities like yourselves know that they are there for support.”
“We hope tonight you can enjoy the company of everyone in your community and have a few beers, a few laughs – this is what tonight is all about.”
