Bush Summit: Woolworths Bush Champions award winners revealed
Ordinary Australians doing extraordinary things in their regional communities have been honoured in the inaugural Bush Champions awards. SEE THE WINNERS
Ordinary Australians doing extraordinary things in their regional communities have been honoured in the inaugural Bush Champions awards.
At last night’s National Bush Summit dinner in Ballarat, the winners of the awards – supported by Woolworths – were announced by Herald and Weekly Times chairman and News Corp Australia community ambassador Penny Fowler.
RELATED: 30 inaugural Bush Champion finalists revealed across Australia
South Australian farmer Ben Wundersitz was named the overall Bush Champion and the Ag Champion; Victorian pediatric intensive care nurse Grace Larson won the Community Champion, and Queensland youth worker Jarib Branfield-Bradshaw was the Young Champion.
NSW State Emergency Service volunteer Josh Hurst received a special acknowledgment.
These are their inspirational stories.
Bush Champion and Ag Champion: Ben Wundersitz (SA)
Ben Wundersitz was halfway up Uluru, on a rare holiday with his family in 2012, when he started to run out of puff.
“It was a life-changing moment for me,” he said.
“I wasn’t looking after myself, I wasn’t home often enough, I was eating too many pies and pasties on the go, and threw a bit of grog in every now and then, and the chickens were coming home to roost.”
Ben made a pledge that when he returned home to Anna Binna Farms, the family’s 6500ha cropping operation outside Maitland on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, things would change.
The fifth-generation farmer started going to the gym twice a week with his mate Greg, and by the end of the first month, the pair couldn’t believe the difference the regular workouts had made to their physical and mental health.
However, Ben and Greg noticed they were the only two blokes attending the gym, located in the heart of town, opposite the local pub.
“We all know that fellas are hopeless at looking after themselves, so I sent out messages to about 40 farmer mates saying ‘come along, it’s great’ but no one did, so we had to change tack. We organised a barbecue on the footpath in front of the gym, brought along a few old cars and invited them all to a ‘muscle-car morning,’ and they came!” he laughed.
“Twenty blokes signed up for the gym on the spot.”
Dubbing themselves the “Fat Farmers”, Ben saw a noticeable improvement in their physical health and significant mental health benefits too, fostering mateship and social connection. There are now 35 Fat Farmers groups nationwide.
Young Champion: Jarib Branfield-Bradshaw (QLD)
It’s late morning and Cunnamulla youth worker Jarib Branfield-Bradshaw, 21, is doing the last of his Meals on Wheels deliveries, before rushing off to open the local neighbourhood centre.
Today, in the former student hostel he transformed, he’ll welcome up to 40 local kids for an afternoon school holiday program of playing cards, video games, table tennis and even a little cooking.
“We teach life skills, how to make food, how to clean up after themselves, lessons to take them into adulthood,” Jarib said.
Although barely an adult himself, his experience of growing up with family violence inspired the young Guwamu/Kooma man to be a force for good for the kids of the outback town, 750km west of Brisbane.
“When I was about 11, my mum got into a relationship and sadly we experienced domestic violence for about six years while they were together,” he said.
“I made a promise to myself that I’d never be the man that he was, I’d be a better man. It was a very dark chapter, but I don’t want that to define me, I don’t want to be a victim. I want to be someone who rises above the hardships.”
Today, the neighbourhood centre is a thriving hub of activity, a safe space that offers food, crisis support, friendship, and a sense of family and connection, driving an 80 per cent reduction in chronic disengagement in local youth.
Community Champion: Grace Larson (VIC)
When Grace Larson started to notice her baby daughter was listless, she knew that she needed to get her to an emergency room, and fast. It was May 2020, and the pediatric intensive care nurse lived a 45-minute drive from the nearest hospital in Bendigo. Complicating matters, Victoria was under a blanket of Covid lockdowns.
Thanks to Grace’s quick action, six-week-old Freya made a full recovery, but the mum of three couldn’t help ponder what might’ve been, had she not had medical training.
“The statistics are damning, children from rural and remote, low-sociographic, or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are three to four times more likely to die from preventable illnesses and injuries,” Grace said.
“It really made me think about what I could do with my skill-set to reduce the inequity. I rang my sister and said, ‘there is a problem here, there’s nothing out there to tackle this, I want to set up a charity, will you help?’ And she was all in.”
In 2023, Grace and her sister Skye, who works in PR and project management, launched The Sisterhood Project, offering free infant and child first aid courses to vulnerable and low-income families, especially in rural and remote communities.
The classes teach CPR, and basic skills about what to do in an emergency.
In the 18 months since The Sisterhood Project began, more than 600 people have attended classes across Victoria, NSW, and WA, with a growing waitlist.
Special acknowledgment: Josh Hurst (NSW)
The best part about volunteering with the NSW SES for Josh is being reunited with the people he’s rescued, like Soad Khaled, caught in a tree when flash flooding hit the Illawarra region last year and swept her car away.
“It was very emotional seeing her,” he said.
“Her foot got caught in a branch as she climbed the tree and she thought she’d drown.”
Josh’s big smile is often the first thing people see on the worst day of their lives. At just 23, he is a veteran volunteer, having joined the highly-skilled rescue team at Wollongong when he was 16.
Josh was still at school and had barely finished his SES training when he got his first emergency call-out to help residents hit by stormwater damage. He took time off school and, in the absence of a driver’s licence, relied on family to drop him off.
Since then, he’s been involved with countless operations from flood rescue, to tree removal, body retrieval, and accident support, even rescuing a pilot whose hang glider flew into a cliff.
Originally published as Bush Summit: Woolworths Bush Champions award winners revealed
