The Australian Hotels Association is urging pubs around Australia to join the Parma for a Farmer campaign, which donates $1 from each chicken parmigiana sold to help communities ravaged by drought.
The campaign is the brainchild of Bendigo's Amanda Kinross, who went public with her idea just over a week ago and has created a Parma for a Farmer Facebook page that's rapidly going viral.
Funds raised by the initiative go to the ‘Buy a Bale’ campaign, which is aimed at helping Aussie farmers struggling to pay their bills and feed their livestock.
Chief executive Paddy O'Sullivan told ABC News: "The local pub is the heart of the local community. Publicans see themselves as a community facility where locals can all come together, and the local public is always a great centrepiece for the community in order for these sorts of causes to be supported."
Mitch Harrison from Langwell Station, 200 kilometres from Wentworth, said: "It's just one of those meals where you can just stop in any pub on a Friday night and sit down and have a few beers and a parma. It's really great."
Kinross has been overwhelmed by the response to her idea.
“A week ago, I was just a mum,” she told news.com.au. Now the #parma4afarma hashtag is trending on Twitter and Facebook as word spreads and hundreds of hotels and clubs join the fundraising effort.
Kinross was incredibly moved by the plight of farmers after watching and reading coverage of the drought.
“One image - an interview of a farmer who was facing having to put down his starving stock and couldn’t even afford the bullets - just stuck with me,” she said.
“I just thought, there must be something simple we can do.”
Lying awake in the dark, she thought about what Australians loved “that maybe you could add a dollar to so they could contribute”. When the word “parma” entered her head, she paired it with “farmer” and thought “that can work”.
Register your venue by clicking here and you'll be sent an authority to fundraise and receive online promotion.
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