In the charred landscape of his Gobur farm, south of Longwood, Pietro Porcu was met with a scene of total loss. His home and the organic free-range operation that supplied his South Yarra restaurant, Da Noi, for twenty years were reduced to ash. Yet, amidst the melted water tanks, ruined machinery, and blackened trees, there was movement – a miracle of survival as chickens, goats, pigs, and cows emerged from the devastation.
A Groundswell of Grassroots Support
The scale of the recovery facing Porcu is immense, but he has not faced it alone. From the moment he returned, the community reached out. A local vet in Yea loaned him a caravan after his farmhouse was destroyed; neighbours provided a generator. Offers of help came from unexpected quarters, including from others who had also lost everything. "I had a man giving me a drum of water... telling me he also lost his house," Porcu recounted, moved by the selflessness.
This story of community solidarity is being repeated across fire-affected parts of Victoria. While many blazes remain uncontained, a powerful grassroots response has mobilised to deliver essential aid, particularly to surviving and evacuated livestock in this heavily agricultural region.
Hay, Help, and Fundraisers: The Relief Effort in Action
The call for help was answered swiftly. Danny McNamara of the Dookie United Football & Netball Club said a single Facebook post on 11 January, asking for hay donations for Longwood-area farmers, triggered an overwhelming response. "We’ve probably got another seven or eight truckloads that have come in," McNamara stated. The University of Melbourne's agricultural campus in Dookie contributed fuel for the delivery trucks, joining local businesses and clubs donating time and vehicles.
Further afield, Racing Victoria delivered feed to Nagambie, where hundreds of evacuated thoroughbreds were housed. A 200-member WhatsApp group coordinated emergency horse transport. Meanwhile, small business owners like those at Affordable Plants nursery in Glenburn, spared by the flames, gathered and delivered hundreds of kilometres worth of supplies—hay, chaff, water, and medical aid—to towns like Ruffy, Caveat, and Yarck.
The generosity extended beyond practical aid. In Castlemaine, tattoo artist Leonie New organised a tattoo flash fundraising day for 8 February, with sixteen artists donating time and supplies to raise money for Harcourt's recovery. A hastily arranged lunch at the Boomtown Winemakers Cooperative raised over $130,000 for the Harcourt community and local fire brigades.
Rebuilding Lives and Livelihoods
For farmers like Pietro Porcu, the road ahead is long. His daughter, Romey, set up a fundraising page which, at the time of writing, had raised over $20,000 and prompted offers of practical help like water tanks and electrical work. "This makes me believe in humanity a little bit more," Porcu said, reflecting on the support. While insurance will cover some losses, the recovery cost will be far greater, and some losses—like decades of cultivated heirloom seeds and cherished cork trees from his native Sardinia—are irreplaceable.
Yet, hope persists. Gazing at the grey, scorched earth, Porcu imagines the green regrowth after rain. "I want to rebuild everything and better," he asserts, acknowledging the task requires "a big hand." The collective response to the Victorian bushfires has shown that such a hand is already extended, forged from the resilience and compassion of communities determined to help their neighbours rise from the ashes.
