Neighbourhood House Week
Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (10:33): This week I also want to give a shout-out to Neighbourhood House Week, as per Mr Tarlamis, Ms Shing and everybody else in this place who has recognised it. What great organisations they are. There are 400 of them around this state, servicing over 200 000 Victorians, doing some extraordinary work, so good on them. I had the great pleasure recently of visiting the Crossenvale Community House in Echuca. It was fantastic to catch up with the tireless coordinator there, Sheridan Clark, and former Campaspe mayor and board member Peter Williams. The Crossenvale Community House aim to engage their local community, providing resources and services to fulfil the community’s potential to achieve their aspirations. Last year they received $50 000 from the government through its food relief package to assist vulnerable community members in times of need, ensuring food security for those who need it most. Crossenvale assists around 100 locals each week, with a focus on public housing residents, low-income workers, the elderly and the Indigenous community. These people are retirees, stay-at-home parents and our youth. They offer computer access, community gardening projects, printing and scanning of documents, room hire and referrals to local services, and during COVID they worked with Good360 and provided $120 000 worth of clothes, footwear and toys for their local community. This month they will start a women’s mentor program with a social enterprise coffee trailer training long-term unemployed women to become baristas, with the aim of getting them into full-time work. It was my honour to meet such an outstanding group of people—and not a comment was passed about the quality of their shoes or their mobile phones.