It was a holiday in Queensland and bad plane food resulting in a very hungry drive past a Bunnings that sparked her idea.
“We stopped for a sausage. It was buzzing. I thought,why don’t we do that?” Seaton said.
“[Back home],I even went to Bunnings to buy the equipment,and told them,'I’m stealing your idea'.”
Seaton sits on the board at Highgate Primary as a community representative and sounded out the idea to a friend at the school canteen,as well as a number of P&C committee members who were also her customers.
She’s three Saturday sizzles in and the idea has taken off.
Highgate Primary ran the first two,and last weekend for Love Your Bookshop Day,local authors and illustrators including Julia Lawrinson and Norman Jorgensen manned the barbecue as a fundraiser for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
This Saturday,Beaufort Street Network is running it;next week,a couple of hopefuls running in the October council election;and then,a line of local schools follows.
Seaton’s also recently held a month-long Beaufort Street Brickmasters Lego competition for schoolchildren,so children too young to enter Lego Masters could still get it in on the craze.
The winners were by public vote on the creations displayed in the shop window with hundreds of dollars in prizes in the form of book vouchers,and books donated by Penguin Random House.
The winner was announced by Perth MP Patrick Gorman and the competition was so popular it will now run annually.
“It’s all brilliant,all creating a positive vibe,” Seaton said.
“There is a difference in my sales too.”
Having said that,it was “most definitely” not going to make her rich.
“It’s a labour of love and I knew that when I got into it,” she said.
“But it’s a big reward to see kids get in and grow up and see their reading habits change over the years.
“And without the support I don’t get to keep employing people,putting on events.
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“People have the power ... they speak with the money in their pocket on how they want their community to be,and look. And independent retailers in strip shopping are paramount.”
Any local group is welcome to run a sausage sizzle fundraiser. Emailhello@beaufortstreetbooks.com.au .