Community & Business
25 September, 2026
Lasting gift from the Atherton QCWA branch
THERE are gifts that mark an ending, and there are gifts that prove something never really ends at all.
THERE are gifts that mark an ending, and there are gifts that prove something never really ends at all.
The outdoor kitchen recently handed over to Carinya Home for the Aged by the Queensland Country Women’s Association Atherton Branch is very much the latter.
With the Atherton branch of the QCWA closing, former branch president Rachel Skarott officiated the handover of the kitchen, presenting Carinya with a donation that she says will bring residents, families and staff together over shared meals and fresh air for years to come.
The generous, practical gift, fittingly one built around the kitchen table, has long been the beating heart of country women’s gatherings everywhere.
A plaque now fixed at the site tells the real story:
“This outdoor kitchen was donated by the Queensland Country Women’s Association Atherton Branch (1925–2026). In recognition of the branch’s service to the Atherton Community. For Country Women, by Country Women”
For 101 years, Atherton QCWA members rolled up their sleeves for their community.
“Through droughts, wars, floods and everything in between, generations of QCWA members met, organised, fundraised and quietly got on with the work of looking after the people around them,” Ms Skarott said.
“The branch’s fingerprints are on countless corners of Atherton life, built one cake stall, one working bee and one committee meeting at a time by women who rarely sought recognition for it.
“The branch’s final act of care was for some of the community’s most treasured members – the elderly residents of Carinya.
“The gift closes one chapter by opening another: a space where residents and their families can gather outdoors, share a barbecue or a cuppa, and build exactly the kind of everyday connection between generations that QCWA has always championed.
“In a real sense, the women of the Atherton branch have simply moved their kitchen table to where it’s needed most right now — and a warm reminder that on the Tablelands, that work is far from finished.”
Despite the Atherton branch of the QCWA closing, the Atherton Tableland Division will continue its work across 11 branches and around 180 members throughout the region.
“Carinya’s outdoor kitchen will do what QCWA has always done best – bring people together over food, care and community. It’s a fitting final gift from a branch that spent 101 years, proving what a group of determined local women can build,” Ms Skarott added.
