Sabrina aims to reconnect KI

She has raised more than $60,000 since November, which has paid for 225 personal protective equipment kits for farm firefighting units and supported a number of other worthy causes.

Sabrina said the fundraiser idea was inspired by a discussion with her husband Ben about replacing their PPE and their FFU after the devastating 2019-20 summer bushfires.

"We had lost everything in the fires, so it seemed like another very costly prospect," she said.

"It made me realise that a lot of farmers would be facing the same issue, particularly in the lead up to the new fire season.

"So I made some calls to see what assistance was available and soon realised there wasn't any. That's when the fundraising idea came about."

Sabrina started the PPE fundraiser by offering a profile story of a local farm firefighter every three days through the month of November on her popular Humans of KI social pages.

"I started the page as a way to reconnect the community after the fires," she said.

"I was also integrating into a new community myself on the eastern side of the island and while everyone seems to know everyone, you still don't know a lot about each other. So I began posting profiles of community members in August.

"It started really well and got quite a following, but then the page really started to ramp up once we announced the PPE fundraiser in November."

The page now has 2000 followers from across the world.

RELATED READING: Sabrina, Stan to shine light on fires

RELATED READING: Resilience shines through during KI fire recovery

Sabrina said that's all she initially planned for the fundraiser, but then groundswell behind the idea grew.

"The Parndana Show was on during November, so I decided to do some doorknocking to get some goods to auction," she said.

"As it was the only agricultural show that ended up being held on KI - and the state - almost the entire island came to the show. The auction ended up being a huge success."

Sabrina said the initial goal was to raise enough money to equip 100 firefighters with PPE (about $15,000), but by the end of the month she had raised close to $20,000.

"It meant we could order 150 kits immediately so our farmers could be equipped for the upcoming fire season," she said.

The kits were handed out at a FFU/CFS induction day in early December.

"I thought 150 would be plenty, but the registrations kept on coming," she said.

"Because of the fires, more people were coming forward to be prepared for the next fire season. By the end of the day, we had names down for at least another 75.

"Thankfully the fundraising continued online so we were able to afford the extra kits, which we distributed earlier this month."

Sabrina said other than public and business donations, organisations such as the Hospital Research Foundation and Rotary also got behind the cause.

The extra funding has meant a number of other worthy causes could also be supported, including distributing dozens of new UHF radios to any farmer who'd lost theirs; six quick-fill pumps were also purchased, which have been strategically placed across the island; while a memorial plaque was paid for in honour of Dick and Clayton Lang, who lost their lives in the KI bushfires.

"My fundraiser aimed to support farm firefighters, so it was only fitting we supported the Lang family with the Playford Highway memorial," she said.

SABRINA and Ben Davis lost their entire Gosse farm in the 2019-20 KI bushfires - their house, sheds, machinery, vehicles, livestock, fences and 250 bee boxes.

For a year, Sabrina and her two children lived in Kingscote, while husband Ben started to rebuild their farm 100 kilometres away.

"After fighting the fires for weeks, my husband then went straight back to the farm to start the rebuild, and he wasn't the only one," she said.

It was a mammoth task that Sabrina felt compelled to document using her past experience at a movie company in Germany.

"This was one of the biggest things to happen to the island and I thought it was really important we captured that journey," she said.

"There had been films made about the soldier settlement scheme and the hardships they faced back then, coming home from war and then having to clear the land and it felt a bit similar to that.

"The KI fires were fought for 45 consecutive days and then those exhausted firefighters went straight back into the rebuild.

"I wanted to tell the story of the struggle and the strength of those farmers - it is incredible what they did, and are still doing now."

With help from local film crew en plein air, they created a documentary, called 'January 3rd'. It was filmed over a year.

They plan to screen 'January 3rd' at the Humans of KI Film and Literature Festival Sabrina is organising in October.

"Often you easily forget a lot of stuff when trying to look back, but we have had amazing help from so many people, so I thought it was important to get that on record," she said.

Start the day with all the big news in agriculture. Sign up here to receive our daily Stock Journal newsletter.