Local artists host successful floods fundraiser

MORE than 50 local artists, musicians and businesses gathered at Bell Beach Brewing last Friday (April 8) to host an exhibition with a cause, donating 100 per cent of all profits to the Northern Rivers flood relief efforts.

The exhibition successfully raised over $10,000 to be donated to various groups helping the NSW flood relief efforts.

Event organiser, Ocean Grove-based local artist Jessi Muir, said she was overwhelmed by the community support for the event.

“After watching the floods devastate parts of QLD and Northern NSW, I knew I wanted to give something back to those communities,” Ms Muir said.

“Watching it all unfold on social media and seeing friends and those communities get in the thick of it was really hard to watch. I wanted to do something but I wasn’t sure what, and I thought, there might be other people who feel the same, who can’t physically be there but want to help.

“I threw an idea out into the social media realm, an invitation to local artists to donate artworks to exhibit and sell with 100 per cent of the profits donated to the flood recovery.

“I didn’t expect it to be big, I just put it out there and said ‘hey this is what I’m thinking’. I envisioned it to be five to 10 artists doing a little online event but once I put the idea out there I ended up getting so many messages from people.

“I had artists and creatives messaging me and wanting to donate and other people saying whatever you do I want to be apart of it and next thing people were saying maybe we should run it in a venue.”

Ms Muir said the event sold out twice on the night, and successfully raised $10,427 to be donated to the flood relief efforts.

“I had to keep updating the ticket quantities to ensure everyone who showed up could be a part of the night. In total, we sold 205 tickets,” she said.

“It was a community effort to pull it all together.”