By Tyler Wright
With more than 30 people expressing their interest in being a part of the Kallista Village Township Group after a meeting on Thursday 23 March at the local mechanics’ institute hall, Kallista is set to have its very own community group.
Kallista Village Township Group secretary Miki Schwartzbord said the not-for-profit association – which is not yet incorporated – will encompass the towns of Sherbrooke, The Patch and Kallista as well as those who work, live and play in the area, with its initial plan to revamp the decades-old Kallista Village Market originally run by the now-defunct Kallista Community House.
“There’s a kinder and there’s a CFA, and there’s some local organisations, but none of them really have as their purpose running the market or getting events happening, or there’s a whole long list of concepts and ideas of what a township could potentially achieve,” Mr Schwartzbord said.
“The initial goal and the reason this all came together initially was with trying to revive the market…but as we did so, we started to realise that a lot of the community organisations [are] having a tough time after Covid.
“All these organisations need community in order to thrive and so they’re really keen to get behind this idea.”
Mr Schwartzbord said the group will mainly start by planning events – including a market festival in Spring and local Christmas Carols – but could eventually form into an umbrella body for advocacy groups.
“This is the longest running market in the hills, It’s been going since 1978. Rather than just another commercial market, It really is like an institution, a public amenity in the sense that locals would come to the market and schmooze and get a cuppa and hang out and it wasn’t a place to go and make lots of money necessarily as a market storeholder,” Mr Schwartzbord said.
Emergency management plans for the community are also on the agenda as a part of storm recovery and bushfire preparedness, he said.
“There was a completely unmet need when there were storms going through… people having Facebook groups saying ‘who needs a generator and who needs food?’…there are a lot of good willed people, but there was no actual plan or body that could help coordinate that,” he said.
“People from the CFA, from Parks [Victoria], from other organisations have stuck their hand up and said, ‘yeah, happy to be part of that’…so that’s something that would then be available for all residents.”
Those interested in joining the township group are able to email kallistavillage@gmail.com and/or fill out an expression of interest form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe6KKpF2JiUBEErv2hdW2h3lb30z2vhmF5AUat-kyQaRZCnZA/viewform
