‘WE’RE THE HEART OF LISMORE’

These brave locals have saved lives and rebuilt an entire community

HOMEGROWN HEROES

Elly Bird, who is the group leader of Resilient Lismore, a community-led recovery organisation, is on a mission to help as many people as she can.

“Our entire community had been destroyed. I can’t count the number of times that

I had to catch people from my community in my arms because they were just so exhausted or overwhelmed,” says the 45-year-old.

The group’s latest project, Two Rooms, is helping people get back into safe, secure and warm homes by installing walls in their houses that completely gutted,” she says. “We have no housing available for people, [so] they are camped on those properties, [and] have nowhere else to go.”

With more than 60 regular volunteers, the team is hoping to recruit volunteer tradies to help restore essential plumbing.

“There is no better thing that I can imagine doing than helping people come back from this incredibly traumatic experience.”

Elly (inset) marched alongside the Lismore Lanterns at the community parade.

have been gutted. “It’s hard for people who don’t live here to imagine what has happened, but thousands of homes are