By Afraa Kori
Residents and visitors are invited to the highly anticipated 2025 Holland festival hosted by the Rotary Club.
The 2024 festival attracted over 6000 people, and raised over $90k all of which has been donated to various charities, many of them local.
In 2025, the annual event will be held at Caribbean Gardens in Scoresby on Saturday March 15 from 10am-5pm.
The festival is all about celebrating and connecting with the Dutch diaspora while raising funds for great causes including Interplast and Wheelchairs for Kids.
The Festival was supported by a large number of volunteers from service organisation, Dutch clubs and the community.
The children’s carnival and all food vendors will be indoors surrounded by acres of manicured gardens and a beautiful lake.
The Festival was successfully reignited in 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023, attracting about 4000 visitors each year. This will be 50 years since the first Holland Festival.
The 30+ Dutch Food offerings by more than 25 food vendors include hot and cold foods, both savoury and sweet.
There will be Dutch and including soldiers from the 1560-1640 Dutch-Spanish War – and about 50 Dutch exhibitors and vendors. As well as a display of Dutch breeds of dogs and books exchange.
The festival aims to provide the community an opportunity to learn, enjoy and live the Dutch culture, heritage and cuisine.
Attendees can look forward to talented bands, choirs, singers performing in both Dutch and English from 10.30am to 6pm.
An all-day sjoelbak tournament will again be run, for all aged groups, with wonderful prizes for the winners, as well as carnival rides for the littlies and many other Dutch experiences.
Rotary member and Treasurer of the Rotary Club of Casey, Paul Rubens said the cultural festival is for the benefit of the community, including people of Dutch heritage
Dutch immigrants have really integrated into Australia really well. Australia is a multicultural nation and it keeps the culture and the feeling Dutchness alive. Especially for people who immigrated from Australia in the 50s, 60s, 70s, they’re just proud to keep it alive for the next generations. The Dutch people aren’t in your face about it at all, about their culture, but they still celebrate it and enjoy that day,” he said.
“Just for that one day, they just remember being Dutch again and they eat all the things that they grew up with and they remember. For the next generation, like my kids were born in Australia and my grandchildren are born in Australia, but they have that feeling of Dutchness and they know that their grandparents used to make and love. So while they don’t eat it at all, just that one day of the year, they come out and eat Dutch donuts and stuff like that.”
Principal Sponsor, John Behrend Instruments and other sponsors have already signed up including Hanson Building Materials and Plunkett Crane Trucks, and at this stage about 10 others.
