The east coast community is coming together to help a local musician who watched her home of 24 years go up in flames earlier this month.
St Helens woman Marita Mangano lost her Binalong Bay home to the blaze on July 11, resulting in an estimated $450,000 in damages.
The fire has “rocked the tight knit community”, prompting locals to rally together to help Mangano and her partner rebuild their lives.
“I’ve been recovering from a lot of shock and tears and so has my partner, but we were rest assured that we were loved in this community,” Mangano said.
Easy Tiger manager Jason Unwin said a line-up of local and international artists will take to the stage at the venue on Friday and 10% of bar takings will be donated to the cause.
“We were absolutely shocked and we’re just so fortunate that Marita’s okay and her partner Dave’s okay,” he said.
“She’s been such a large part of what we’ve done here, she really is part of the Easy Tiger family and we just wanted to do whatever we could to support her. Just by buying a beer, you’re helping out.”
Mangano said she has been blown away by the support she has already received.
“I’ve cancelled everything in my life except I have kept the Easy Tiger open mics going, simply because I didn’t want to let my community down,” she said.
“My day job and all that has to take a second seat while I rebuild my confidence.”
“When you think mental health, it’s not a closed slate. It’s actually interesting how the mind works because even though parts of my mind were shattered, these other parts that need to stay alive and that is really with music.”
A GoFundMe for Mangano has already raised $11,345.
