Eaglehawk’s man of steel

FOR Michael McKern, community is everything.

Owner of Eaglehawk business McKern Steel, Mr McKern does so much more than run a fast-growing steel fabrication company.

Mr McKern is a key part of community group Empowering Eaglehawk, chairman of the Bendigo Sports Star, and founder of the McKern Foundation.

In 2015, the McKern Foundation launched its Fresh Fruit Friday program, ensuring over 11,000 students across almost 40 schools have access to fruit.

“We did that because there was a community need for it,” Mr McKern said. “It’s the correct sort of corporate structure to be looking after the community.

“We do 1-tonne of fruit every week just through the city. We’re about to expand that even further in the next month or two and we’re going to provide fruit for kindergartens.

“The younger we start them the better it is.”

As part of Empowering Eaglehawk, McKern has been quintessential in ensuring the community gets the funding it needs.

“Our funding is up over a million dollars for the community,” he said. “It’s extremely important. It’s difficult to run community groups that are just volunteer based, everyone needs some funding.

“We’ve done probably every second group in Eaglehawk at least once and the grants run into about $5000.

“We’ve got a couple of major partners, Bendigo Bank and Bendigo Telco so if they can help support partners, partners give us a commission and we use that commission on a monthly basis to hand out funds to the locals.”

Funding in Eaglehawk has allowed for upgrades to parks, skateparks, the playground, the football oval and cricket and netball facilities.

“All those facilities over the last five years, with substantial funding from Empowering Eaglehawk, are probably nearly the best facilities now in Victoria, probably regional Australia,” Mr McKern said.

“A lot of councils work like that, if the community can get behind the project and support it definitely helps the decision making at local council. So, we’re pretty proud about how we did that.”

Mr McKern said the Peter Kranz Leisure Centre is next on the list of faculties to be upgraded.

Along with his company, foundation and community work Mr McKern finds time to chair the Bendigo Sports Star Awards.

Launched in 1965, the awards are the longest running sporting recognition program in regional Australia.

Each month a sport star is awarded, and scholarships are handed out to inspiring local athletes and at the end of each year, the Bendigo Sports Star of the Year is announced.

COVID-19 resulted in a lot of community work being paused, but Mr McKern said it’s impressive how the community has dealt with the pandemic.

“We talk about it a bit less and try and continue to push forward,” he said. “It’s still front of mind at the moment but some of the community stuff is slowly coming back on board.

“Business is still moving forward; the building industry is pretty strong.”

Mr McKern also said the growth of regional communities is a positive sign.

“There’s more people moving out of Melbourne’s CBD and into regional areas,” he said.

“I think you’ll find over the next few years regional cities like Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong and Shepparton will grow at a faster rate and become better communities.”

In 2010, Michael McKern was named Bendigo’s Citizen of the Year.