ALFA's Community Heroes Award, sponsored by Lallemand Animal Nutrition, is back for the third year running. This heart-warming award recognises and rewards feedlots across Australia for their outstanding contributions to local communities and the environment.
The overall winner will receive a $5,000 cash donation that can be directed towards a local charity, business, or feedlot initiative, further enriching their communities.
The application deadline is August 31, and the winner will be announced at SmartBeef23 on October 11 and 12.
Aronui Feedlot's Annual Feedlot Cricket Day
Established in 1964, and purchased by AACo in 2002, Aronui Feedlot is proudly recognised as Australia’s oldest commercial feedlot. It comes as no surprise the team behind Aronui play a vital part in the local community and beyond, hosting multiple annual fundraising events for a variety of charities.
With a vision of facilitating an event to support and engage the local community, the team created an annual event for all to enjoy - recently hosting their third Feedlot Cricket Day to great success.
Aronui administration, HR and training officer Matilda Stitt said the team were excited to create a platform for feedlots to come together and participate in a day of laughter, socialising and community, all while raising funds for the Bowenville State School P+C. Their goal was to facilitate an event that would support and engage our local community, whilst also creating a social platform for feedlots to come together.
“Once the limitations of the pandemic were alleviated, providing an event to celebrate the lot feeding industry, our staff, and our local community became that much more important to us,” Matilda said.
“By hosting a local event, we recognise how valuable it is to create opportunities for our kids and to provide not only ours, but other feedlots, a safe environment for staff and their families to network within our industry.
“This has had an excellent impact on morale and culture on site.”
Matilda said the team at Aronui are “extremely passionate” about this initiative and hope to see it continue to expand.
Established in 2020 by two friends from opposing feedlots, the event has grown from two teams to six with hopes of more in the future.
Matilda said the friends developed the idea after talking about organising a social get together to celebrate the industry.
“The locality of Bowenville is near to us in the darling downs, as well as at the heart of many feedlots.
“It is a small school without a lot of exposure who deserves fundraising opportunities like the surrounding bigger schools, so we jumped at the opportunity to involve them as we had decided we wanted to provide a BBQ for everyone this year, enlisting the school for help.”
What impact is the initiative having on the local community?
Fostering a sense of community and supporting kids within their rural community is important and involving local groups and school P+Cs is one way this initiative reflects that.
Matilda said hosting social events in rural and remote communities gives everyone a chance to relax and socialise and develop a sense of camaraderie.
“The chance to offer this again for even more feedlots would be amazing,” she said, adding the Community Hero prize money would be put back into growing the event.
“Providing the opportunity for families and other companies who share the same passions as us to be enriched with social interactions and relationships outside of work is so important here at Aronui.”
By hosting a local event, Aronui recognises how valuable it is to create opportunities for our kids and to provide not only theirs, but other feedlots, a safe environment for staff and their families to network within our industry.
They are extremely passionate about this initiative in their community and to see it continually expand is genuinely rewarding to the team.
About the ALFA Community Heroes Award
Australian feedlots are vital to the fabric of rural and regional Australia by creating jobs, supporting families, and contributing to local economies and the environment. This award recognises and rewards those feedlots that are actively nourishing their local communities and environment by going above and beyond to support their community, that ‘give-back’ and better the environment around them. The winning initiative will receive a $5,000 cash donation towards a local charity, business, or feedlot initiative to assist in further development and impact of the initiative.
With thanks to our ALFA Platinum Member sponsor, Lallemand Animal Nutrition for their support of this Award.
