A group of hard working volunteers at Yarra Valley ECOSS were recognised for their efforts after finishing two major upgrades to the farm.
Taking place on 9 December, participants of the Crops for Community program celebrated their award certificates with a sausage sizzle and a dash of festive cheer.
Yarra Valley ECOSS executive officer Chelsea McNab said the program’s participants (made up of people living with disabilities and their support workers) helped seal the farm’s pathways so they could be accessible to all.
“At ECOSS we have lots of participants living with different abilities coming in our Crops for Community program and we want to have an accessible site, and our pathways were a bit pot-holy and we’re consistently fixing them and they weren’t really great for wheelchairs.
“Now that’s here, we’re really excited to welcome more people with not only wheelchairs, but also prams and walking aides and for all ages and abilities. It feels really good to be able to be more accessible,” Ms McNab said.
With the help of an $18,000 grant from Federal Casey MP Aaron Violi, ECOSS was able to asphalt the pathways throughout the farm to make it easier for people with varying accessibility needs to get around.
Pathways connecting to key amenities such as the accessible toilet and community garden beds were prioritised.
“We tried to prioritise areas so that people in wheelchairs could actually get in from the car park to the accessible toilet there and then around the community garden and as much of the site as possible.
“They can attend our events in the market now easily. It’s not something that we could just afford to do, even though the want has always been there,” Ms McNab said.
Celebrating in the Coop at ECOSS, the space was brimming with energy as the volunteers shared smiles and laughs.
Their unbridled enthusiasm was infectious – you could feel a strong sense of pride and joy throughout the room.
Another major upgrade to the farm was the construction of five artist studios which will house like-minded upcoming businesses in the community.
The five hubs were funded by a $50,000 grant from the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and built in a way to maximise their sustainability.
With double glazed windows and well insulated interiors, the hubs are ethical spaces and will house businesses of the same nature.
“We’re creating a healing art space there for different modalities, and we’ve got now a psychotherapist in one and an NDIS art therapist in another,” Ms McNab said.
“We’re looking for people who might want to share spaces or do creative healing things. But we also designed it so that there’s a workshop area in the middle so that people can connect and meet each other and run workshops and perhaps collaborate more.”
The incubator hubs will give small businesses the opportunity to start out with less overhead costs and network with other businesses in the space.
“It’s very hard to start a business if you’ve got really high overheads and have any public interface, so we can offer that here and it also makes our site more interesting and brings more vibrancy,” Ms McNab said.
But she said the opportunity to get involved with the community at ECOSS was just as valuable.
“There’s a really vibrant community here at ECOSS and I see that development of connections can bring so much more than if you’re going out alone and you’re isolated.
“We wanted to bring that energy to the space and support the local economy,” Ms McNab said.
Those who are interested in using the incubator hubs can contact Chelsea McNab at: info@ecoss.org.au.
It’s taken the volunteers two years to build the hubs but Ms McNab said it was worth it.
“The process of doing that with volunteers… it’s been a really good process but a long process.
“They’ve gained skills, people have come just to learn for a few days and it created a really good bonding opportunity for a group of people to do that together,” Ms McNab said.
She thanked Tom and Neil who led the group of volunteers in building the hubs and said “what they’ve done with the amount of money is quite exceptional”.
