ERIN

Can you give our readers a bit of background info on Make a Differencehow you got started and what you provide in the community?

The Make a Difference (MAD) Charity currently feeds and supports homeless and marginalised people, including families and children, five days a week in the Hastings region. Proceeds from the sale of tickets to the Ride the Soundwave Music Festival will support the vital services that Make a Difference provides throughout the year.

MAD was founded in 2016 with just four committee members, including Rob and I, and a team of ten volunteers. Fast forward to 2023 and Make a Difference now has a wide range of skills from financial governance to graphic artistry across our team of 90 volunteers – who are all working together to stage the Ride the Wave Festival. Our volunteers are amazing and go above and beyond every week to support people in our local community doing it tough.

The first project for the MAD team was to partner with Orange Sky Laundry to secure one of their mobile laundry vans to service the Mid North Coast of NSW. This entailed raising $110,000 in nine months and was the first regional Orange Sky Laundry Van to roll out in regional Australia.

This year is the biggest line-up for Ride the Soundwave and we hope locals and visitors will support us by purchasing a ticket for a great value afternoon of top Australian live music in a beautiful location beside Town Beach.

Following the Orange Sky Laundry Van project, Make a Difference has gone on to fundraise for a coffee van and food truck. On a monthly basis it fills 30 shifts that feed more than 400 disadvantaged people in the region, with dedicated volunteers giving more than 550 hours of vital assistance. When Make a Difference started, we discovered a need we didn’t know existed. More than 600 people sleep rough on the Mid North Coast every night, and across the state there are more than 50,000 people waiting for public housing. There is a real housing crisis and some of those we help aren’t yet living on the street, but as the cost of living keeps rising, some people are teetering on the brink. We supply support five days a week, with the other two days very well covered by other services who operate on the days we don’t.

Every week of the year Growers Market donates around 40kg of produce to MAD. HEM Property, Coastline Credit Union, Men and

Women at Work, John Oxley Motors and many local pubs and clubs have been with us from the beginning and their unwavering support is vital to sustaining our services. Make A Difference has been running Ride the Wave Festival for a few years now, where did the idea for this festival come from and what’s it all about?

The Make a Difference (MAD) Committee realised that the level of funding needed to keep the charity operational and supporting the marginalised in the region would require a high degree of fundraising, so it was decided that rather than continue with multiple events the Committee would stage a major event in the hope it would bring in major funds.

We started off with the surf and skate competitions, which are very well supported, and then added a ticketed music event that we called Ride the Soundwave. This year is the biggest line-up for Ride the Soundwave and we hope locals and visitors will support us by purchasing a ticket for a great value afternoon of top Australian live music in a beautiful location beside Town Beach.

You’ve got a killer lineup for ‘Ride The SoundWave’ this year! Can you tell us about who will be playing at the event?

The line-up this year is epic. Rob worked really hard to put together a line-up that fits with the laid back beach vibe of the event, and has broad appeal, as well as giving us great names and music that most people will know.

Boy & Bear are one of Australia’s best known indie folk bands with Platinum, ARIA chart topping albums and have been nominated for multiple ARIA awards while The Waifs are an Australian folk rock band who celebrated 30 years together in 2022. They’ve also won multiple ARIA awards and achieved double platinum status and have supported music greats such as Bob Dylan on tour and launched independent label Jarrah Records with John Butler. They have also received multiple AIR Awards for Best Independent Blues and Roots Album.

Music duo Busby Marou have toured Australia for more than a decade and have been the face, and music of current Tourism and Events Queensland’s tourism campaigns. Blues and Roots category APRA Music award winners Busby Marou have also had an ARIA Gold Album as well as millions of global streams, top 20 airplay and four ARIA Charting albums. Renowned indigenous performer Mitch Tambo who was an Australia’s Got Talent finalist has more recently joined the line-up and will open the music festival alongside local elder Uncle Bill, Stevie Donovan on didgeridoo, and a spectacular light display of artwork by local indigenous artist Jamie Donovan and local Birpai dancers.

What do you think attendees can expect from this show?

We’ll have awesome, well-known performers putting on a show that will be incredible value.

There’s not many gigs that offer this calibre of entertainment and a cultural experience for just a $90 ticket price. And the music will fit well with our beachside location and the overall vibe of the weekend festival. The festival has quite a boutique and intimate vibe making for a memorable afternoon and we’re family friendly so everyone can come for a fun afternoon and evening.

How does purchasing a ticket for this event support MAD?

100% of money raised from Ride the Soundwave will go to MAD. It allows us to supplement our food donations and make purchases like our coffee and food truck infrastructure to help feed and support more and more people as the cost of living rises, and lack of affordable housing continues to have a huge impact in our region.

What are you looking forward to most about the whole festival?

I love every part of Ride the Wave Festival, especially seeing our youth getting an opportunity to compete and perform in front of their home crowd. Ride the Soundwave Music Festival is really going to be next level this year so I’d have to say that’s the thing I’m most looking forward to seeing grow, especially the opening with Mitch and our local indigenous community. That, and seeing our community come together to support one another via MAD while having a great time. Thanks Erin.

SUNDAY 23 APRIL

SUNDAY

23 APRIL 12-6PM

PORT MACQUARIE RACE CLUB

Don’t miss out on a great the races. Book your tickets

PORT MACQUARIE RACE CLUB www.hbwn.com.au/events

$89 per person. Includes entrance fee to the track, access to our private suite, (the Clydsdale room) a welcome drink, canapes and an afternoon of entertainment and prizes. Funds are being raised for several local charities.

$89 per person. Includes entrance fee to the track, access to our private suite, (the Clydsdale room) a welcome drink, canapes and an afternoon of entertainment and prizes. Funds are being raised for several local charities.

SPONSOR TODAY

Don’t miss out on a great day at the races. Book your tickets thru: www.hbwn.com.au/events hbwnsponsorship@gmail.com

0407 687 333

SPONSOR TODAY hbwnsponsorship@gmail.com 0407 687 333 t he Village is the longest-running long day care centre in Wauchope. i t W as originally o P ened as ‘ t imbertown c hild c are’ more than 20yrs ago, an D has grown and evolved over the years to accommodate babies, to D dlers and preschool chil D ren within the Wauchope community and surroun Ds.

In early 2021, the business was purchased by Amy Trotter – a born and raised local with an early childhood and primary teaching university degree, 18 years’ teaching experience in the Wauchope and Port Macquarie region and an infectious passion for high-quality, play-based early childhood education and care. The name of the service was changed to ‘The Village’ to reflect the adage “it takes a village to raise a child” and the culture of community and ‘extended family’ support that is The Village’s ethos. We consider that we are not only a service to support the children in our care, but to provide a network for families within our community also. Our education and care team is made up of a diverse network of early childhood professionals, from Certificate 3 trainees to Diploma qualified educators to universitytrained Early Childhood Teachers. Many of our staff come from families who have been locals for generations, with others joining the crew from further afield.

Amy prides herself on her ability to select like-minded, dedicated early education and care experts whose individual philosophies align with those that The Village encompasses, resulting in a cohesive, supportive, enthusiastic team who care for and nurture not only the children but their families, each other, and the wider community also. Centre Manager Ellie Simpson has just welcomed her own babe and is currently on maternity leave, with experienced leader Crystal Majeski now capably overseeing the leadership and management of our Wauchope team.

These days, the majority of children’s services are owned and operated by large, interstate companies or business people with numerous centres across the country and profit-driven priorities. However, in a town like Wauchope and with the business owner working on site at the helm, we have the responsibility of looking in the eye every day, the very people who our decisions, policies and practices directly affect, and this brings with it a level of care, accountability and integrity which can be lacking in other services. Our service philosophy and culture embody our key foundation statements, “Relationships are Central, Play is Essential, Potential is Infinite”, ensuring that everyone feels welcomed, supported, cared for, appreciated and empowered within our village. This is evident by the countless testimonials of everyone who walks through our front door, with comments of feeling a sense of belonging, warmth and worth that emanates from the genuine care, kindness, dedication, expertise and hard work of our team. During this universal staffing crisis, there has been a steady stream of educators

For F urther in F ormation about t he Village Preschool & lDc , call c rystal on contacting Amy about gaining employment with her business. It is evident that their ‘people principles’ are one of the greatest strengths at The Village Preschool & LDC.

Also rare in early learning centres these days is the over-sized, natural playground that makes The Village unique. With worn grass, a diggingpatch-come-mud-pit, bike track, giant sandpit and an abundance of natural shade with leaves and flowers carpeting the paths and play spaces, The Village makes no promise of a shiny, flashy, synthetic, pristine environment to present to children and families each day. What it does promise is bare feet, mud pies, egg/ chick incubating, worm hunting, tree climbing, jumping in puddles, cultivating vegie gardens, growing giant sunflowers, and eating mulberries straight from the tree. “An immersion in a rich, natural environment in which the children are free to explore, hypothesise, investigate, take risks, process and regulate senses and emotions and develop relationships with each other and the natural world is the kind of childhood we believe every child deserves” says Amy. “If you want your child to return home at the end of the day with the same level of cleanliness and composure in which they arrived, we may not be the preschool for you. If you want your child to encounter and enjoy all that nature and the magic of limitless imagination has to offer, then give us a call!”.

Not many people realise that by definition, the only difference between a “preschool” and a “long day care centre” is the amount of weeks per year that the service operates. Our curriculum framework (early childhood equivalent of a school syllabus), qualification requirements, principles, practices and learning outcomes are universal. And as an added bonus, we are open 6.30am-6.30pm, 51 weeks a year. “With the Start Strong Fee Relief payment for families being applicable to us from 2023, the government is giving recognition to the preschool and school readiness programs that have been delivered in long day care services for as long as they have been delivered in community-based preschools”, Amy says. “It is a welcome and equitable initiative and we are pleased to be able to offer our families the same subsidised access to our highquality preschool curriculum as our community-based counterparts”. In addition to the existing high-quality preschool program we provide, we are excited to reveal that we are also preparing to implement the literacystrengthening Multi-Lit program “Pre-Lit” – the reading and writing enhancement program adopted by local primary schools that has been modified into a play-based pre-literacy development program to support children’s preparation for literacy learning when they embark on formal schooling. intro please Bev

Ozzie Roper was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia at the age of 2, but after finishing treatment he now wants to help others and recently participated in Charlie’s Run for Kids, raising money for families with children going through treatment.