Carmel Cristofaro spoke of her Life
1. Born in Leeton and Number 5/6 children
2.Grew up on family farm and did not eat if you hadn't grown it, picked it, killed it or given to you from someone else who'd grown it, picked it or killed it.
3. Spent many hours working and picking fruit on farm and developed amazing work ethic and sense of family
4. Father - Vencenzo was born in 1929 in Cittonova - joined the Italian Army at 18 and migrated to Australia and worked on railways until marrying Angelina Scali in 1957
5. Mother Angelina was born in 1939 in Cinquefrondi. Her dad left for Australia when she was 3 months old and was not reunited until they migrated when she was 11 1/2. having done little schooling she eventually went TAFE to learn dressmaking
6. Her parents worked with her grandparents until they purchased Farm525 in 1961. Her grandparents after migrating to Australia had a further six more children and so Caramel has lots of aunts who are her own age - this leads to a very numerous group of nieces, nephews, cousins etc
7. Carmel's work history starts at leaving school in Year 10 to now being Office Manager at Ricegrowers Association of Australia
- Checkout operator at Leeton Fruit Supply
- seasonal work at Letona Fresh
- Office work @ Letona Fresh
- Work experience @ Rockdale Beef and Jenora Potpourri
- Job skills traineeship with NSW Police
- Onto a Cert II and then maternity relief work @ Riverina Stock Feeds
- Office Manager @ Murrumbidgee Fire Protection ( now known as OZ fire)
- In 2001 as a single unmarried Italian heritage girl bought a home to live alone with her fur babies
- Office manager at GR Turner and Accountants
- Finished at TAFE Cert IV BUS and Cert IV Training and Assessment
- Took a position at GetSet, that later was reduced in hours due to a cut in Government funding, so for awhile worked 3 jobs in 3 towns; namely Baaida in Griffith, GetSet in Leeton and Menagazzos in Sandigo.
- in 2014 Carmel applied for the position at RGA. Carmel was the most outstanding candidate and has since worked with no less than 4 Executive Directors
An amazing life story that cannot be adequately reported in this media. Carmel was thanked by none other than Al Capone look alike Graeme Kruger