AHA NSW Hotels donate $250,000 to struggling farmers

With the entire state of NSW in drought, the hotel industry has mobilised its resources to lend a hand to struggling rural communities.

In the last week AHA NSW member hotels have committed more than $250,000 to Rural Aid’s Buy a Bale campaign.

The donations are on top of the thousands of dollars being raised each day by hundreds of
individual pubs who are running their own local fundraising campaigns.

“Country pubs are the heart of rural communities, and when those communities suffer we all
suffer,” said AHA NSW Deputy CEO Sean Morrissey.

“We are an industry that believes in community and we believe it is our duty to reach out and
offer a hand up to those who are doing it tough. The generosity of our members is inspiring.”
“Over the coming weeks and months, when combining these fundraising efforts across our
industry, we are confident of pushing towards one million dollars in funds raised.”

Once of the most popular campaigns is the ParmaForAFarmer campaign, with pubs
donating proceeds from every schnitzel or parma sold to charities like Buy a Bale or other
local charities that supply feed for starving cattle.

Big mutli-venue hoteliers like Redcape are taking part nationally, as well as hundreds of
single pubs from Newtown to Port Macquarie. All Sydney Collective venues donated 100 per
cent of parmy sales on 10 August on top of $2 from each one sold during the rest of the month.

Hoteliers across Newcastle and the Hunter have joined a local initiative called Fork to Farm,
which sees venues pledging a percentage of meals sold to their struggling rural neighbours.
They have raised more than $70,000 so far and the figure is still rising.

Many city based Liquor Accords are also teaming up to help their country colleagues.
The City North Liquor Accord has put together the Beers For Bales initiative, where licensed
venues across the CBD donate 50c from every beer sold on Wednesdays in August and
September to Buy A Bale.

The Accord’s total goal is to raise $30,000 in addition to sponsoring two semi-trailer loads of
hay to be sent to rural areas.

To donate visit: www.buyabale.com.au or log on to your local pub’s Facebook page and
find out how you can get involved.