Since we talked last time I opened a shop in Keen Street called the Curious Kookaburra, which was a local home made collective store of over 30 local creators. Six months later I opened The Creatory in the Star Court Arcade which was going great until Covid. We had to close due to lock down rules.
We put our focus back into the shop and we were really busy over Christmas which was fantastic. After Christmas I closed the shop for a week, took everything out, painted, refurbished and had custom shop fittings made by one of our stockists who was a local wood worker. I then reset up The Creatory at the bottom of the post office building to recommence doing work shops.
Six weeks later the flood hit. The shop had an 8 foot high storage loft where we were able to raise a lot of the stock thinking that would be high enough. I moved a lot of stock out unlike the Creatory which was full of furniture. I don’t own a ute or truck and I had nowhere to store it. We packed it up the best we could in the little time we had but it didn’t matter as we ended up being hit with 14.4 metres of flood water.
In 2017 the water came up to my shoulder, this time it went beyond the ceiling to the roof top. When I was finally able to return to the shop the ceiling had fallen in, air-conditioning ducts, wiring, roof panels were hanging down, heavy tables had been flipped upside down, everything was destroyed.
I spent the next week running on adrenalin cleaning up the shop and the Creatory, helping clean my brothers house in Avondale Ave, helping friends, helping strangers on the street. It was so devastating.
I really needed to take some time out so I went to the Gold Coast and stayed with my best friend for 5 days. I didn’t want to come back to Lismore. Being away was very overwhelming, I had an anxiety attack in the shopping centre as everything was so normal there, people were shopping, the shops had windows, ceilings and stock, it was too much. I knew I needed to be at home.
I came home and hit the anger stage of my grieving and realised I couldn’t help people while I was so angry. Everyone around me was hurting and grieving so I thought it best I stay at home and not inflict myself on other people for a while.
I started sewing. I remember in 2017 floods that people were making heart banners for Lismore. I wasn’t involved then but I thought it was such a beautiful idea. I got onto facebook and looked into who started the heart banners at that time. I found out the lady was no longer in the region but one of my friends was involved at that time and I checked with her that it was ok as I didn’t want to tread on anyone’s toes.
I sent a friend of mine who wanted to help over to Patchwork Fabric where they were selling flood affected fabric cheap and asked her to get all the red fabric she could find. She then took it all home, washed and ironed it and I made a template. I also had an electronic template made and set up a facebook page, I started asking friends if they wanted to help and from there it snowballed into an enormous love heart monster that’s taken over the world (laughs).
I basically work full-time doing this. We give the banners to any flood affected business or home free of charge. Anyone else who wants to support, and that’s a lot of other people can get a banner via donation and those funds all go back into material.
We now have two admins, ten people who do deliveries and about forty local people sewing and then there are a whole lot of people who are making hearts nationally for Lismore too. Sewing for Charity in Brisbane got on board and their volunteers sewed 110 heart flags in the first week.
We now have a bank account, email, Facebook and Instagram pages and as of last night, we have made and distributed 700 heart banners, and that’s just us. Many other people in the community are making them too. We also had a lady donate a beautiful patch work quilted banner that was sent to me in the mail from Brisbane so we had an auction and raised $1555. We’ve asked her to make another to go to the second highest bid which was $1,510 so we made over $3,000 and that all goes back into making lot’s more banners. I offered to pay the lady for her time, materials and postage but she didn’t want anything so I sent her a bunch of flowers.
So many people have commented how they wouldn’t come into town as it was so sad and overwhelming, People have said that seeing the heart banners warms their hearts. I had a lady say that she wanted to put one up in her house so people knew it wasn’t abandoned. The 2 biggest hearts in Lismore hang on the Cathedral. They are 6 metres long and were made by the parish secretary. I love seeing them as I drive down from the heights.
We have quite a few people who want to sew but they’ve lost their machines and sewing equipment so we had a beautiful lady from Tweed Heads donate 4 sewing machines which I’ve given away and last week we bought packs of scissors, thread, pins, tape measures and we donated those to people who’ve lost theirs. Just yesterday we drew the giveaway prizes which were beautiful hand made items donated to us. It started with a friend who made a gorgeous macrame wall hanging and we ended up with a hundred hand made items so we had a Mothers Day Giveaway.
My idea was always to make the banners, drive around town and offer them to people but our waiting list sat at over 100 for a month so we haven’t had time. I was interviewed by the Lismore App and I said my vision is to see every building in Lismore with a heart banner. Three weeks later I thought, ’You’re insane Bec, what have you done? You’ve created a monster.’ I don’t know if we can but we sure will try.
I was contacted yesterday by the organisers of the big concert for Lismore next week, they have asked me to make a heart flag to hang on the stage.The organisers are supportive of people to bring along their banners and wave them in the crowd. They are also talking about using a lot of our images of the hearts on the buildings and projecting them on the stage. Another great thing is the Love for Lismore heart banner volunteers will be walking in the Lantern Parade on the 25th June.
I’ve lost my business but I haven’t lost my home and I feel very fortunate. Doing this for me is a sign of giving love and compassion to other people because so many people have lost so many things. We are all struggling and we have limitations, whether that’s financial, physical or emotional, the only thing that we all have is kindness, compassion and love and we need to give that to each other. So for me, that’s what I’m giving to my community. The people receiving the banners are saying that it gives them a sense of hope. Hope is the word I’m hearing the most. People from all over Australia are recognising the enormity of what’s happened here and taking time to sit and sew a piece of fabric, put love into it and send it off. It’s recognition, it’s validation, it’s hope and it’s love.