Bursting with energy
Jas Herdman
I’VE been in Toowoomba my whole life, so it’s pretty good.
I’m a barista here (at Full of Life Organics), which I absolutely love. It’s been such a good place to work at actually because the team here are amazing and the customers we have are also amazing.
I really enjoy it – plus making coffee is one of my favourite things to do. Away from work, I like to socialise. I’m quite a bubbly, out there, eccentric person.
In the future I’m hoping to study the field of international relations, so basically international security studies and policy studies, to get into foreign affairs.
What do I love about Toowoomba? The diversity. There’s a lot of community initiatives on around the place and a lot of different kinds of people from all walks of life, and I find that really intriguing and really nice.
Michelle Tong
SO BEFORE we started here I was a personal trainer. I was born in New Zealand but... I came over with my parents when I was 10.
I moved to Toowoomba the same time as Jason, six years ago. I was a personal trainer and I just researched things and learnt a whole lot and realised I could be a lot healthier than what I was.
And then that’s when, you know, I looked into plantbased eating, whole foods, that sort of thing.
I did nutritional courses, and that’s when we got into our juices. We wanted to share what we knew and were passionate about to Toowoomba – because there was a lack of that sort of thing when we opened the other shop two and a half years ago.
This is what we believe in. This is not just our business and our job, it’s our passion.
That’s why we make everything in store because we know what’s in the product and we’re just passionate about what we do.
What do I love about Toowoomba? Probably the parks and gardens. Carnival of Flowers is the prettiest time of year. It’s my favourite time of the year.
Jason Tong
I’M originally from New Zealand and have been in Toowoomba for about six years.
I moved straight here to Toowoomba. When I first came here I managed Knights Laundry for about three years and myself and Michelle, we used to do the PCYC markets for about 12 months, and Felton, selling our organic coldpressed juices.
We used to go places that had food that was using processed sugars or was non-organic, so we decided to start with our juices, do it through there.
We used to do that on the weekends and then we decided we’d take it a step further and opened the Ruthven St café first. That was two and a half years ago and then we just expanded to Grand Central.
What do I like about Toowoomba? I like it because it literally takes you 10 minutes to get to work... It’s nice and easy to get around and I just love the environment. It’s a big city but it’s not.
Charlotte Candlin
WELL, I just moved here in January from the UK.
Why Toowoomba? My fiancé is Australian, from Perth, and he’s got family here. We came here on our travels when I lived in Perth and I fell in love with it too, so we decided to move here.
I think it’s beautiful. It’s got lovely parks. I love being in the mountains, because we lived on the beach in Perth, so it was quite a different lifestyle from living on the coast to up here.
We wanted to buy a house so property was a bit more affordable up here.
I love the community here. I’m very much into yoga and meditation and I think there’s a lot of that here. And yeah, lots of good walks.
I’ve worked here since February. I’m the chef. I got into that because my mum was a chef so I’ve pretty much been doing that with her my whole life.
What’s my favourite food to cook? I like cooking curries. I like a bit of spice and flavour.