How a community and 13-year-old girl will save our Jacaranda Jill

She’s turned a bit of glitter for her friends into an international business, and now she, along with a host of local community minded people are helping rebuilding our iconic kewpie doll.

It’s been a long road to get the Jacaranda Festival’s iconic “Jacaranda Jill” kewpie doll back to life, but with the help of a range of volunteers, including an enterprising 13-year-old, she’s getting ready to sparkle again.

The rebuilding of the doll was necessary, after she was set on fire in her debut year in 2019, the story reaching all the way to the Gold Coast to then 10-year-old Sophia Rizzo.

Sophia had already made waves in the world, creating her own company Glitter Girl at the age of 9, and saw the sad story of the burnt doll on Facebook.

“We’ve got friends in Grafton, and we always come down to the races, and we saw the story of how it was burned,” Sophia’s mum and now one of five Glitter Girl employees Megan Rizzo said.

“We just put a comment up that if they needed any help get in touch.”

That help will now include providing more than two kilograms of a special glitter, in purple and gold of course, to bedazzle her paintwork.

“It’s a special type of glitter because it has to be fine enough to go through the paint guns,” Ms Rizzo said.

The glitter company started out for Sophia of a failed attempt to sell homemade glitter pots to her friends at school.

“The teachers put a stop to it, so she decided to try and sell it online,” Megan said.

“She got her first order in a week, and by three months we realised it was going to be something bigger than we thought.

“Now four years later, we have five staff, 60 stockists Australia, orders worldwide and are looking at a bigger warehouse as we’re running out of room.”

Glitter Girl will also provide gift packs to each of the Junior Jacaranda contestants on the Royal Party & Sponsor Cocktail Evening at the Clocktower Hotel.

Jacaranda Jill and her huge frame stored at Caringa workshops in Grafton before her rebuild

It’s not a one person show though; for Judy Hackett and Michelle Vidler, who have taken on the role with a crowd of willing helpers to make the massive dress for Jill, it’s coming together slowly.

“We’ve got 500m of fabrics, including 400m of tuile to make the dress,” Ms Hackett said.

“It’s three layers of dress, 4.3m long and 18m around the circumference – it’s a really big job.”

Ms Hackett said it took them and their team of helpers a whole day to cut the half kilometre of material into manageable lengths to be gathered and sown together.

“It’s been pretty full on, but I think it’ll be amazing,” Ms Hackett said.

“There’s a lot of people helping, and we’re really appreciative of all the people that have been doing lots of little things that’ll make up one big thing.”

Festival manager Mark Blackadder said the effort to rebuild Jacaranda Jill had been an amazing coming together of people.

“Jacaranda Jill would not be able to be restored without the generosity of sponsors, and people like Judy Hackett, Michelle Vidler, Brennan Elks and the team from Caringa Australia, Glitter Girl, the team from The Design Collective and the many dedicated volunteers,” he said.

“We’re excited to see her celebrate a phenomenal 21st Birthday in Market Square this year during the festival.”