Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (10:39): Last week in Eureka I had the great honour of representing Minister Spence at the first anniversary celebration of the Community Care Centre Ballarat, and what a remarkable milestone that was. This project is the very best of Ballarat: people seeing a need in their community and coming together to meet it with compassion, creativity and hard work. I want to acknowledge the extraordinary vision and drive of Gary Morgan, whose leadership brought this project to life, and of course Shona, the warehouse manager, who keeps the whole operation running day in, day out with dedication and great heart. All six Ballarat Rotary clubs have thrown their full support behind this project, showing once again the profound impact that Rotary has had in our region for over a hundred years. They worked alongside the City of Ballarat, the Ballarat Foundation and Community Bank Buninyong, and all of those people’s support was absolutely essential. But of course none of this happens without volunteers, with more than 2600 hours of service in the first year. Their generosity has helped more than 65 families.