What a fantastic day we had with our guest Mindy Woods on Saturday!

We kicked off at the Forbes Riverside Community Garden at 8am with the first Crop Swap in Forbes and a crowd of attendees with a wonderful range of goodies and produce fresh from local gardens and kitchens, with everything from relish, grapes, peanut butter slice, brownies, seeds and eggs.

Over 30 people joined us at the Riverside Garden with breakfast, cups of tea, giveaways and new memberships shaping the morning into a fantastic time together, culminating in a presentation by our special guest, Indigenous Chef, Mindy Woods.

We then moved on to Trundle Children’s Centre at 10.30am, with a beautiful morning tea provided by volunteers at the Centre and an opportunity to hear from Mindy once again.

We headed on to Peak Hill Community Garden for their first Crop Swap.

Given that we hit some reasonable heat by lunchtime, we were thrilled with the turn out of locals keen to be part of the event and keen to contribute in the longer term to the garden.

A massive thanks to Dave Laming and our capable BBQ team for supporting the event.

Prior to the Dinner at the Carrington Hotel, five Hospitality students and Mrs Stanford from Peak Hill Central School assisted with setting up tables with tablecloths, serviettes and cutlery, and assisted with prep in the kitchen.

During the evening they also provided table service and cleaning up after the event.

This was an exciting opportunity to allow Hospitality students to work in a real-world event environment.

Mindy’s involvement in these events, was kicked off by our involvement with the Peak Hill Building Healthy Communities Challenge, supporting the community with the Peak Hill HEART (Healthy Eating, Activity & Resilience Together) Project.

Mindy brought a wealth of information to our area and was generous with her time at each event.

We are very grateful for this opportunity to host her in Parkes and Forbes Shires.

These events would not be possible without the support and partnership of Landcare NSW, Western NSW Local Health District, nbn, The Buchanan and Topsoil Organics and our fabulous volunteers.

A particular thanks to Kennards Hire for assisting us at short notice.

A special thank you to Luke, Paul and Teresa who volunteered to support our dinner event.

Without their assistance, it would not have been possible. For further information, please go to www.centralwestlachlanlandcare.org, X, Facebook or Instagram @cwllandcare