Donations foster community spirit

WENDOUREE Neighbourhood Centre have received a series of donations from Midlands Golf Club that’ll be used at the community organisation’s Grove site.

Midlands Gold Club initially reached out hoping to donate some tabletops to the Men’s Shed, but when training coordinator Simon Dwyer saw other equipment which was going to be thrown out, he knew it could be put to a better use.

“While I was standing in the changerooms, they said ‘all this has got to go because we’re doing a full on rebuild of the whole site’,” said Mr Dwyer.

“We ended up getting in touch with the Soup Bus to see if they’d like a baine-marie and they jumped at it, and we completely transformed their dining room.”

Two baine-marie’s, four large tables, 60 chairs, and 30 lockers were donated to the Neighbourhood Centre to be used by organisations including the Soup Bus, St Vincent De Paul, the Women’s Shed, and Hearing Voices.

“In particular, for the people going to the Soup Bus, it makes it more welcoming, more like a restaurant than a room with dodgy old chair in it,” said Mr Dwyer.

“It lifts the quality of the room.”

Following the opening of Neighbourhood Centre on Holly Grove, Mr Dwyer said the Violet Grove site has become an important community hub.

“We’ve been able to do it because we’ve shifted our centre and we thought this is an opportunity to bring in other services which add value,” he said.