Happenings at last week’s Meeting
This week’s Meeting was a little different on a number of counts. First, it was held on a Tuesday, second it was started at 5:30 and third it was held at a different venue, namely the Dromana Community House. Attendance wasn’t what could be hoped for, but at least the Club wasn’t “embarrassed”.
We were welcomed by: Tracey Trueman (House Manager); Liz Bentley (Treasurer); Kate Young (Chairperson) and Rob Pizziol (Food Rescue and Share Coordinator). As the light was fading, Tracey took us outside to have a look at the Early Learning Centre and the Seed Pod.
The Little Gum Early Learning Centre has about 68 children enrolled, and it provides a rich learning environment that is both family and community focused with an emphasis on the local indigenous culture.
The Seed Pod attached to the Centre is both an educational facility and a means of providing extra produce for the House Food Programs.
The Neighbourhood House provides a variety of activities with a team of about 71 volunteers working in, basically, a two-room building. Activities include: Art and Craft; Meditation; Life Skills and Empowerment. All this is financially supported by the State Government and Shire, Sponsors, Donations and Fundraising Events.
Food Rescue and Share provides for up to 70 families each Thursday morning as well as stocking a Pop-up “Grab and Go” cart seven days a week. They partner with 2nd Bite and receive a pallet of food, which varies in content, each week that is sorted and bagged by the volunteers. Local Suppliers provide much needed support as well. “Local” for the House is Dromana, Safety Beach and Red Hill.
The current “storage shed” is not fit for any other purpose and application has been made to the Shire for permission to replace it with a demountable which would be used for the expansion of a number of activities.
As Tracey said, the House is doing a lot but could do even more. The small buildings limit what can be done. They are planning on introducing Cooking Classes, but this will put even more strain on the space they have.
The house need help with funding, of course, but also with preparing applications to the Shire for grants etc. and permissions.
One of the more obvious areas of cost which may be tackled is the necessary use of plastic containers for the food (soup and stews). This was thought of as one of the challenges that Rotary could take up.
Tracey and her team spoke more about the big and small issues around the running of the Centre but are obviously fully committed and in love with their work.
They provided us with a very large “snack” which I’m sure we didn’t do justice too.
Of course, we dispensed with the usual Club-specific parts to our Meeting and President Mick finished off by thanking all the House people (Housees?) for their time and effort. He closed the meeting at 6:45.
