Homemade Marmalade Drive to Help Delvena Women’s Refuge

With news of domestic violence, unfortunately occurring in Sydney and beyond, three little Riverview locals have made it a point to make a stand, a marmalade stand, that is.

Homemade Marmalade

Mimi, 13, Michael, 11, and Matt, 9, will be selling homemade marmalade on the North Shore streets this weekend. They will donate most of the proceeds to the Delvena Women’s Shelter.

“It really breaks our hearts to see the situation that they’re going through day to day and how different their lives can be from ours and the life that we’ve been accustomed to,” the eldest Mimi expressed.

Victoria, their mother, said the exercise was an initiative to teach her children the value of money.

However, recent news of domestic violence in Sydney – in particular, the house fire that saw the death of three children in Lalor Park, which police are treating as a domestic-related multiple homicide – has inspired the young entrepreneurs to help DV victims.

Seville Oranges

The idea to craft and sell their product was plucked from their neighbour’s Seville orange tree. The fruit is much too bitter to eat on its own, but when life gives you sour oranges, you make marmalade.

“We’re using Seville oranges. You can’t eat them raw; you have to boil them into jam to consume them,” Matthew, the youngest, explained.

The family has made almost 80 jars of the spread in different sizes all sourced from homegrown Riverview plants, including lemons from a tree in their backyard to give the jam its thickness.

The Process

Creating the jam is no easy process. There’s much to do after collecting the oranges. ” We had to juice the oranges, then we had to shave the pectin off,” Michael recalled. We got all the pith inside a bag and all the juice inside a large pot, and we put the bag inside. Then we got all the joules from the bag and shaved it off and put it in the pot and then put it into jars.”