Jessica Rowe, 9, wears the fly veil that she designed as part of her Buzz Off Bugz range.
By Paul Pickering
A CHIEF executive and philanthropist at the age of nine, Silvan South’s Jessica Rowe is a little girl with big ideas.
She is the driving force behind an emerging venture called Buzz Off Bugz: a range of fashionable insect veils designed for Hills residents who share her love of the outdoors.
And while the funky fly veils are proving a big hit with locals this summer, Jessica is keen to ensure that a portion of the profits go to rural communities most affected by drought.
She says she got the idea for the product from an incident during a meeting of her regular horse-riding school in Macclesfield, when one of the horses took off as its rider frantically waved away a pesky fly.
So, in consultation with her parents Janet and Bruce, the charismatic The Patch Primary School student decided to have a go at creating a practical and fun solution.
“My dad always plants plants, my mum goes to horse school and I go horseriding,” Jessica says.
“And whenever you’re around horses and plants you can’t flick flies away, so I designed a veil.”
The nets are already being worn by Jessica’s horse-riding group and will be used by Mr Rowe’s team in the Oxfam Trailwalker event later this year.
Mrs Rowe, who runs a patchwork design business from the family’s foliage farm, has overseen the production of a range of different colours and patterns and says she is still in awe of her daughter’s creativity and generosity.
“She’s a little entrepreneur in the making,” Mrs Rowe said. “She’s very artistic and this is her project.”
For Jessica, the desire to help out drought-affected agriculturalists is something she has grown up with.
“We rely on crops to live, and they need a lot of help in their lives,” she said.
“We’re planning to look around and see which area is really badly hit by drought over the summer,” Mrs Rowe added.
“And maybe help out with buying exercise books for the school or something like that to try and keep the costs down for families.”
For more information about the Buzz Off Bugz range, or to make an order, call Mrs Rowe at Wildcraft Farm on 9737 9776.
