Since 2005, the idea of raising money through retail sales to support victims of those disasters is a strategy that we understand. Two successful examples that come to mind were the sales of ReNew Orleans t-shirts that raised money for the Musicians Union after Hurricane Katrina, and believe it or not, another was when employees of the Whole Foods stores in Georgia voted to use sales of king cakes to support my organization’s White Boot Brigade project after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The White Boot Brigade are a series of roaming shrimpers events to direct market wild caught seafood far and wide. That money allowed us to bring a group of shrimpers to California ( at a time when our residents had no way to buy seafood) where they made many sales to restaurants and stores, some of whom are still customers of those shrimpers.
As someone who has met some of the New Zealand market folks while attending the Australian market conference a few years back, I know how much they all appreciate being connected to the larger market world. So, I attach the link for the relief work that you can support (by buying wine!) and also one that goes directly to support the market organization in New Zealand. Sometimes just a cheerful note from a far-off place makes a great difference I can tell you….

A little background-Staff at marketumbrella.org were honored to be invited to the Australian Farmers Market Conference in 2009, where our ED was the keynote speaker and we also presented our 4M management structure and learned loads of new ideas to bring back. While there, we met some amazing market managers and farmers and saw markets and gardens galore…
The Australian markets were started about 12 years ago by Jane Adams, who came to America to study the open-air market system, chiefly the DC markets. So, a lot of similarities…
As you can imagine, our thoughts have been with the folks we met since the catastrophic flooding in Queensland and now in Victoria (where Melbourne is located). Here is the response from Sophie O’Neill, food activist in Victoria:

Dear Darlene

Sophie