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Australia Day fundraiser at Penticton’s Slackwater Brewing a success

Money raised at Australia day party donated directly to Victoria Bushfire Relief Fund
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Western News staff

Sunday’s Australia Day celebration and fundraiser at Slackwater Brewing was a great success.

Their Australian meat pies, baked and sold specifically for the fundraiser, were gone just one hour into the night.

“It’s been standing room only for like an hour,” said co-founder Liam Peyton during Sunday’s fundraiser. “We’ve had people coming in all day looking at the auction.”

What started as a fun Australia Day party at Slackwater Brewing quickly grew into a packed event to support Australian bush-fire relief efforts.

READ MORE: Penticton’s Slackwater Brewing to host Australian bushfire fundraiser

The brewery also co-hosted other Australia Day fundraiser parties at Apex Mountain Resort, Silver Star Mountain Resort, and Whistler via satellite.

Co-founder of Slackwater, Liam Peyton spent his first seven years in Canada living in Whistler after he moved from the U.K.

Peyton said he made countless Australian friends in Whistler.

“It’s terrifying to fathom what some of them are going through right now. Australia Day was always a blast in Whistler, so we thought we could turn this celebration into something bigger and try to help out,” said Peyton in an earlier interview by the Western.

The event quickly received an overwhelming amount of support from the community, according to Slackwater.

“Donations for the silent auction started piling in, (musical group) Jack and Jill offered to perform a few free sets to get the party started, and then some of our partnered bars in the ski resorts that we service wanted to help out too,” Peyton said.

One of the brewpub’s bar leaders, Joel Simons, is from Victoria, Australia. Simons helped lead the charge by getting the local community involved.

“With Australia Day coming up, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to engage our local community to help raise awareness and funds for our friends back home battling the worst fires the country has ever seen,” said Joel.

All of the money raised on Sunday, including proceeds from the silent auction, customer donations, and part of proceeds from all beer and Australian meat-pies are going to the Victoria Bushfire Relief Fund.

READ MORE: B.C.-based firefighting plane crashes in Australia, killing three

To report a typo, email: editor@pentictonwesternnews.com.

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An estimated $5,000 worth of items were donated for the silent auction for the Australia Day Fundraiser at Slackwater Brewing on Sunday. (Brennan Phillips - Western News)
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