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OUR STORY
The Father Mac's Heavenly Pudding enterprise is owned and operated by the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Alstonville and is proudly staffed by, mostly, volunteers. Proceeds from the Pudding sales help support the activities of the Parish and assist other local and overseas charities.
Our story began in 1981 when it became necessary for the Alstonville Catholic Community to form our own Parish. Prior to this time we had been a part of the Ballina Area the Sisters of Saint Joseph were running our school. It had been considered that the school may be closed because of the lack of students enrolled. However this entire area began to grow considerably, Father Darcy McCarthy became our first Parish Priest. He came to us from Lismore where he had been Administrator at St.Carthage's Cathedral. He lived with a number of other Priests with all the usual household staff. Here he lived alone and so was able to indulge his passion for cooking.
Father Mac (as he became known) inherited what he described
as the "Worst buildings in the diocese." Our entire complex
was in need of extensive maintenance (roofing was literally hanging off
and foundations rotting badly). The children were using one of the garages
as a class room. We began raffles, housie, balls etc to raise the necessary
funds to commence the much-needed maintenance and to build two new classrooms.
At this time we also applied for a Capital Grant to assist this programme.
This application was refused and it became necessary to raise our own funds. One of the many fundraising efforts was a cake
stall outside the church after each Mass. Father Mac always arrived with
many goodies including an ample supply of Puddings. As the story goes
there was always many more where they came from. The first year Father
Mac cooked approximately 300 Puddings. That quantity quickly grew to 11,000.
At that time Father did all the work himself, cooking two or three Puddings
at a time in an ordinary household boiler, getting up several times at
night to top up the water.
Eventually funds allowed the purchase of our first Industrial Steamer(
installed on the presbytery back verandah). The quantity grew to 22,000
with Father Mac still doing all of the work involved in the Presbytery
kitchen. He did enlist the help of Kate Craig during her Christmas School
Holidays. Kate (an ex-student of St. Joseph's School) had completed year
12 studies and was waiting for examination results. Also, several other
Parishioners had become involved with minor chores. One household was
chopping the fruit another gluing labels on Pudding Lids and assisting
with account keeping facilities and others cutting foil to size. (We now
buy the fruit by the tonne, so it arrives ready for use, the labels are
already on the lids and Ted Bruggy (the husband of Kay a much-treasured
Pudding Cook) invented a wonderful Foil Cutter. By this time (1987) our
Building programme had commenced and children were now occupying the first,
of several to come, new School buildings. The Pudding business was flourishing
with other Schools now purchasing our Pudds to assist their fundraising
efforts. Businesses, Clubs etc were also purchasing our Famous Father
Mac's Heavenly Puddings. Parish volunteers arrived to assist with production
and one of the original St. Joseph's classrooms was renovated to become
the "Pudding Factory". Under the guidance of Father Mac a dedicated
band of workers arrived at two and four o'clock daily to assist with the
production and the business continued to grow. We were lavished with media
attention. People were fascinated with the "priest" who cooked
Puddings. Sadly, Father Mac died with a brain tumour in 1991 and Parishioners
elected to continue with the Production. (We are sure Father Mac is looking
on with great pride and of course the "miracles" will always
be credited to him). Our present Parish Priest Father Frank Mulcahy, is
not a Pudding cook but has always encouraged and assisted the enterprise
to become a more professional business. We are a Limited Company with
the guidance of a Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Finance Committee.
(Our Parishioners together with the entire Alstonville Community support
and inspire our work.)
Our Business has continued to grow, we now sell our Puddings
through selected Stores and Supermarkets. While our first allegiance will
always remain with the smaller fundraisers the Supermarkets and Stores
have made our Puddings available to more people at a more competitive
price.
Our Building programme has moved through several stages with plans for
much more in the future. The generosity of Parishioners and Money from
the Puddings has ensured excellent education facilities have been made
available for our children. Besides this, profits have enabled the Parish
to provide a full time Special Education teacher in the school. Also Father
Mac's has helped in securing a full time Pastoral Associate who is responsible
for many programmes being introduced to the Parish including an excellent
Adult Education in Faith Programme, through this many outstanding speakers
have been brought to our community. As well, the Parish is active in social
justice through its Social Justice and Peace Committee and has used pudding
proceeds to support many overseas and local charities. As a Parish we
would like to be able to do many other things, your purchase of our Puddings
is vital to the continuation of Father Mac's work in the Parish and with
new ventures.
Click HERE for the Chronological
History of Father Mac's Heavenly Puddings
and photo's of some of the volunteers, and pudding eaters!
Click HERE to download our Brochure
The Brochure is in PDF format. If you haven't a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader click HERE to go to the Adobe site, follow the prompts and download a free copy of the program. Or if you prefer to receive a Brochure in the mail, click the following link to have one sent to you. fathemc@nor.com.au
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