LOOKING AT LANDCARE By MARG APPLEBEE, CENTRAL WEST LACHLAN LANDCARE Thank you to everyone that has submitted an Expression of Interest to be a stallholder at Homegrown Parkes on Saturday, 11 October 2025. Applications have been reviewed by our Homegrown Parkes Committee to ensure that they fit with the ethos of the Homegrown Parkes event. This community event is going to be a wonderful Spring celebration, incorporating the Keep Australia Beautiful NSW Tidy Towns Sustainability Awards weekend. Because Homegrown Parkes won the Community Spirit and Inclusion Award at the Keep Australia Beautiful Tidy Towns NSW Awards in 2024, we thought it was only fitting that when we host the Tidy Towns Awards in October, that we share our event with visitors to our Shire as part of the weekend event. We look forward to welcoming Parkes Dance Co to Homegrown Parkes for the first time! They will be taking the stage at 10.30am, followed by Parkes M and D with a preview of their upcoming production Little Shop of Horrors! Parkes Shire Concert Band will be welcoming us all to the Park at 9am. We are always proud to be supporting our local performers and sharing their talent with the community. Educational Workshops will again be one of the highlights of the next event, highlighting processes for using locally produced food and products with the aim of encouraging locals to have a go and grow in their own backyard….or have readily available in the pantry. We look forward to sharing two fabulous workshops that we are providing for free to our community and we will also be providing an opportunity for locals to join the tours that are showcasing our local projects that were NSW Sustainability Award Winners for 2024. Bookings for all of these events will be coming online in the month ahead. The bus tour will commence at the conclusion of Homegrown Parkes at 2pm. Homegrown Parkes is an opportunity for local and regional businesses who are processing, repurposing, sewing, propagating or producing fabulous local products to share their skill and products with the community. The Homegrown Parkes Committee, is made up of members of Central West Lachlan Landcare, Parkes Community Arts and Parkes Shire Council, are looking forward to delivering two fabulous, encouraging and inspirational events in 2025. This event is made possible with funding and in-kind support from Parkes Shire Council, Evolutiion Mining Northparkes operations and Central West Lachlan Landcare. For further information on this article, please go to www.centralwestlachlanlandcare.org, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @cwllandcare
