New Colac community centre a ‘beacon of light in the heart of the city’
BY LERISSE SMITH
When The Salvation Army’s Colac Community Centre opened a year ago amidst widespread excitement and jubilation, few could have envisioned the extraordinary success it would achieve.
It marked a new and transformative era for the local Salvation Army in the Western District of Victoria.
“It has been great to see the explosive growth of how we can support the Colac Region with this space,” said Josiah Van Niekerk, Community Engagement Coordinator and head of Business Development at the corps.
“We are distributing about 2.5 to 3 tonnes of material aid across our Material Aid programs. We are now at the forefront of social and business work in the Colac region. We really want to celebrate the team’s amazing efforts over this inaugural year of the new era of Colac Salvos, and to show the greater Salvos family how the Colac region is growing. We are bringing our vision and mission to the local community.”
With the Victorian regional township rich in manufacturing, farming, and forestry, the centre on Dennis Street is busy.
The Salvation Army runs church, Bible studies and prayer gatherings out of the facility, while daily and weekly material aid programs encompass a Market Day, Community Pantry, Community Breaky Bar, and shower/laundry facilities. Doorways Community Drop-in and Colac Salvos Kids Playgroup also form part of the Salvos service to the local community.
The centre serves meals to about 100 individuals weekly through its Breaky Bar, Monday lunches and Friday nibbles programs, which form part of the community drop-in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9am-2pm. Alongside these programs, locals can access the centre’s free shower, laundry and free haircut services.
Children are not forgotten with a Colac Salvos Kids Playgroup run for parents every Tuesday so parents can socialise while their children play in the community centre.
Working actively
With such a thriving service to the community on many fronts, Josiah believes the centre is providing a beacon of light in the heart of the city.
“We are doing great in the triage space of being able to get people coming in here so we can feed them, get food in their pantry, and offer services like a free shower too,” Josiah said.
“But we’re also trying to equally grow into a space of prevention, of working actively in community development to give people the tools they need to keep their marriage together and to keep on top of their finances. The community centre is a central part of what makes our community, and the last five programs started from community, such as school students and churches, who initiated ideas that came to fruition. It has been a blessing to be able to be a vessel for social justice and a vessel for God’s kingdom.”
The Colac region has many physical and emotional needs, especially when it comes to its local community members.
Josiah said that during his work with the local community over the past few years, he and Colac Corps Officer Lieutenant Paul Trotter realised that residents needed to trust others and have meaningful relationships.
He said it was critical for the local Salvation Army to provide spaces where people could build trust and relationships with each other before having the right to help and walk alongside them in their lives.
“It’s very rare in Melbourne, let alone in a place like Colac or Hamilton, where someone is just going to walk in and say, ‘Crap, my life is falling apart, I need your help’,” Josiah commented.
“You’re only going to really get to that point when you’ve caught up with them and had a coffee for the last six months. You need to run programs and have spaces where you can create relationships so you can create trust. Once that is done, you can then have the ability to walk in life with people. Life isn’t on an Excel spreadsheet – it’s in the nitty-gritty of it all.”
And even the centre’s humble kitchen provides a focal point for the community.
“It’s not a fridge builder, it’s a relationship builder,” Josiah reflected.
“We really try to push that. We’re not here to fill fridges, we’re here to fill stomachs and fill hearts and to be able to create those spaces for relationships and conversations to start. It’s this beautiful, messy, crazy space where you’ve got two and a half tonnes of material getting distributed. People getting triaged with Doorways vouchers, haircuts getting done, sandwiches, soup and food being doled out everywhere, all in the same space. And it’s just this chaotic, amazing thing that the community loves.
“I see food and coming around a table as a great community leveller. Being able to get around and share a meal levels the playing fields, and that has been a big thing for us. We see it as a tool for relationship because the real problem isn’t feeding their belly; it’s speaking into their identity, their purpose, their loneliness towards holistic health. So, for us, it’s the spiritual, physical, mental and emotional health of our community.”
Focal point
A look back at the centre’s inception revealed it nearly did not come to fruition. The Salvation Army had planned to close in the area five years ago.
However, newly commissioned corps officers Keryn and Aaron Coombes were able to gain momentum for the local area before Josiah and Paul arrived three years ago and grew the programs to what they are today, with The Salvation Army spending more than $3 million to build the centre.
“Colac had often been viewed by many people as an in-between city where people would stop for a coffee while travelling to other neighbouring townships, resulting in a mentality among locals that it felt like the city had been missed,” Josiah said.
“But now the centre is a focal point for the township.”
Meetings with peak representatives from Foodbank, Second Bite and Food Share led to the Salvos putting up their hand to coordinate the material aid. Geelong Food Relief provides the Salvos with produce sourced from Foodbank. Many local businesses also assist, including Woolworths and Coles supermarkets, which donate about 300kg of produce.
The centre’s Market Day provides the largest space for those needing material aid, followed by its Community Pantry.
Families can access a wide array of material aid, from baby formula, children’s clothing and shoes, breast pumps, beauty and sanitary items, baby bottles and food of all sorts.
“These are the first things that parents stop being able to buy when life hits the fan,” Josiah said.
“The main gist of our material aid is to ensure dignity to families and parents. We might have a lady come in and needing material aid because she needs her legs waxed, and that’s fine. It’s fine to be dignified even when life is hard. There are ways that we can feel dignified and encouraged and empowered, even in hard times.”
Local partnerships
The centre has established a good rapport with the local Vinnies (St Vincent de Paul) and an independent organisation, Colac Kindness Network, that create meals for locals and has a pantry accessible to the community 9am-5pm, seven days a week.
The Salvos also help supply those two agencies with material aid, which they then distribute to various local organisations and essential services, including hospitals and welfare agencies.
“It has been a big thing for us,” Josiah said.
“We have realised not everyone feels comfortable coming to us. Not everyone knows what we have. But they know about Vinnies, they know about the local hospital, they know about different agencies. So, we want to be able to empower those agencies to be able to best support their cohort. We still have the means to get another 800kg of produce distributed through the Food Bank if we have the demand. Meat is always the highest in demand and also the hardest to get.”
“We are so excited about our future, of being an integral part of developing a kingdom-based holistic community across the Colac Region.”
Using mainstream media to promote the services of the centre is an important tool for the Salvos to ensure the message gets out in the community. Staff will take part in local radio interviews and use advertisements to ensure people know help is available.
And while Colac is known as a wealthy manufacturing township with huge companies such as Bulla Family Dairy and Australia’s largest sawmill company, AKD Softwoods, being based in the city, many people were struggling behind the scenes with high rates of alcoholism and substance use such as hard drugs including ‘ice’.
“There’s wealthy people working in a factory town. But us, being people, we’re greedy. We want the new LandCruiser, the $1.2 million house, and loans that are too big ... and then life hits the fan, and then everything falls apart, marriages fall apart, and then it all goes belly up,” Josiah said.
“So, it has been a big thing of just trying to get into community and say, ‘Hey, if you can’t pay your rego, why don’t you just come in’, and you can get items out of our Community Pantry or Market Day, and then that will save you $150 on your grocery bill so you can pay your rego. We would prefer not to be picking up the pieces six months from now when they lose their house, they become homeless or may suffer domestic violence. It is so preventable.”
One of the major issues for the centre staff is ensuring people experiencing issues such as domestic and homelessness are able to access food. Often, they are unable to eat frozen meals because they don’t have access to a microwave oven.
The Salvos are currently trying to get a fridge or freezer locker system outside the facility, including a microwave oven, so that homeless people can access food outside operating hours.
Exciting future
With many projects going on, the Colac team is looking to more great times ahead, including two new exciting programs. One is called the ‘Otway Wardrobe’ and will allow any young person to borrow some great formal attire for free to wear at their next formal or social event.
The other initiative is a Social Youth Drop-in space where the Salvos have fostered a collaboration with local police, employment agencies, disability support agencies, schools and organisations to support young people.
“We are so excited about our future, of being an integral part of developing a kingdom-based holistic community across the Colac region, as Colac is just our foundation to reach to all the satellite towns across the region we support,” Josiah said.
“The centre continues to go from strength to strength in meeting the many needs of our great community, through encouraging community to create community and through being a vessel for that work, we are enabling a more long-term approach to meeting needs across the Colac region.”
