Fish D'vine gave more than 1000 reasons to smile

FISH D'vine owners Kevin Collins and Rebecca Clark are the last two people to blow their own trumpets.

D'Vine Catering owners Kev Collins and Rebecca Clark were hard at work feeling the cyclone ravaged Whitsunday community. Picture: Sharon Smallwood

FISH D'vine owners Kevin Collins and Rebecca Clark are the last two people to blow their own trumpets.

But their actions in the direct aftermath of Cyclone Debbie were responsible for more than a thousand smiles in the direct aftermath of Cyclone Debbie.

While many in the Whitsunday community were without power, food or water; Dvine catering staff were out in force with enough food to feed 1500 people for several days.

The salads, muffins, burgers, sausages and ice-blocks which ordinarily would have been taken out onto charter boats in the Whitsundays were all transported to the Old Island Traders building in Jubilee Pocket to feed people who had little to no food of their own.

For Kevin Collins, the reason for their generosity was simple.

"I'm lousy with a chainsaw but I can feed people," he said.

Several days later on April 3, Fish D'vine and KC's came together at the Fish D'vine kitchen to "give the community something to smile about".

Co-owner Rebecca Clark said the combined kitchen night was all about lifting people's spirits.

"It was nice for people to get out and have a bit of outside time without the TV to preoccupy themselves," she said.

"We just wanted to make as many people as happy as we (could)."

The limited menu available for the night was all about letting the experts do what they did best. KC's looked after the steak, Fish D'vine cooked the seafood and Whitsunday guitarist and songwriter Kieran McCarthy played the music.

Mr Collins said there was nothing more "quintessentially Airlie Beach" than bringing these town icons together.

"We are not a collection of individual businesses, we are a town of many bits and pieces and to have Kieran (McCarthy) come and play songs for Airlie is a big one for the locals and puts a smile on people's faces after an awful week," he said.

"If you were to define Airlie Beach on a food and music spectrum its KC's, Fish D'vine and Kieran McCarthy.

"Nothing could be more Airlie Beach than that."