By Tanya Faulkner
The finalists for this years’ Westfield Local Heroes awards have been announced, with Knox locals showing what our community is made of. The program, now in its sixth year, highlights everyday role models who make a positive impact in their local community or the environment, with the successful hero for each centre awarded a $20,000 grant, and the other two finalists receiving a $5,000 grant. Our finalists for Knox have been recognised for their efforts in our community.
Mark Smith – Boronia Rotary Club
The recently turned Rotarian has taken Boronia’s music scene by storm following his induction to the Boronia Rotary Club.
After agreeing to join the club “if his wife did too” the pair have stepped into their community, introducing a song-writing program for disadvantaged youths in the community.
“It blows your mind when you see how much time people put into things, and the ‘warm fuzzy’ feelings you get when you do it,” said Mr Smith.
On the back of Covid, following a funding request through his business to support disadvantaged youths to get into sports clubs and activities, he thought “what about the kids that don’t play sport?”
This led to the creation of the song-writing program, giving youths an outlet for creativity and expression, and learn more about their feelings inside.
Mr Smith said Covid was a traumatic time, we were all living it and saw in the media how hard it hit our youths, which sparked the idea.
“The thing with songwriting is it comes from deep inside you when you just let it flow, and when you share that song you don’t always realise that this is your ‘stuff’ coming out,” he said.
He said kids of all backgrounds got involved, having lessons from a local singer-songwriter over six sessions, to learn the basics of songwriting.
At the end of the program, the club took the kids to a recording studio, where they all recorded songs they’d written to take home.
Mr Smith said not only is it an outlet for them to express their feelings, it supports their overall mental health, self-expression and confidence, and it was amazing to see their progress throughout the program.
“If you take a kid to a counsellor, they tend to bottle things up and not want to talk, but when you ask them to write a song, things you don’t expect can come to the surface.
“Some of the kids were extremely shy – one girl in particular came in with her grandmother and would hide behind her legs and not come out, but at the end she was friends with everyone in the group.
“We had another boy with autism, and the challenges alongside that, and he came out with the most amazing and emotional song that describes his life living with autism, it was incredible,” he said.
The Boronia Rotary Club is about to kick off another round of sessions in the next couple of months, and I have plans to go much bigger and bolder in the future.
“We want to get much more kids involved having seen the power of it, the feedback from the kids and their school principals as well,” said Mr Smith.
Russel Edwards – Melbourne All Abilities Lions Club
Knox local Russel Edwards is breaking the stereotypical ‘Lions Club’ stigma by introducing a revolutionised new club to Melbourne.
Mr Edwards has spent a lot of his life around disability groups, with his two kids both having autism, and noticed a big gap when it came to opportunities for those living with disabilities to play their part in the community.
“When you have kids with disabilities, you tend to spend a bit of time bouncing around groups and services.
“Some people wanted to start a lions group for their disability services a few years ago, but couldn’t quite get it off the ground, so they suggested that I give it a crack,” he said.
After discussions with his wife, Alex, on how to involve families, kids, parents and young adults experiencing life with disabilities, they discovered the desire of those families wanting more.
“Most of these families are taken care of with outings, social events and good will, but for some people they found it wasn’t quite fulfilling and wanted to be able to contribute back to the community,” he said.
In 2019 the club was born, with the decision to do some fundraising for autism.
This led to another lightbulb moment for Mr Edwards, noticing that these kids don’t just want to fundraise for their own disability.
“Like anyone else they have their own passions and interests, like the environment or disaster relief.
“It really started kicking off once we changed our fundraising, we realised you can’t make the assumption about what the kids want to do.
“There’s no link between a person’s ability or disability and what they want to become a humanitarian about – it’s a passion separate to your identity,” he said.
Today the club stands strong, as a place where young people with disabilities can come in and express themselves, contributing to the community and world through humanitarian projects that are run by the young adults involved.
So far the club has donated to autism, several disaster reliefs including the recent Australian floods, Sri Lanka, the tsunami in south pacific, helped someone get a new service dog, helped with eye health, diabetes and hearing issues, to name a few.
Mr Edwards said the community loves it.
“They’re super positive and it’s a wonderful thing that they haven’t really seen,” he said.
He said they don’t treat anyone differently, they’re treated as independent people, given voting rights, and there’s no handicaps at all, with the club running the same as a regular Lions Club would at their skill level.
Mr Edwards said it’s an amazing opportunity for these young people to come in and feel included, learn some new skills and make new friends, all while doing what they can for the wider community.
“We see some really amazing moments where you just think ‘wow, this is amazing, I’m so happy to be here’.
“Everything raised in the group is 100 per cent given back to the community in one way or another, and is a very inclusive group for anyone to get involved,” he said.
Some new clubs are being established in Brisbane following similar suit.
Lillie Giang – Feed One Feed All Incorporated
At a time where the cost of living is at the forefront of the community’s mind, the Food One Feed All (FOFA) Incorporated is a well loved service making life in the Hills that little bit easier.
Lillie Giang saw a big need in the community in 2021, following the big storms that ripped through the Yarra Ranges and the Eastern Suburbs, destroying homes, businesses and power supplies to locals.
She responded to the crisis by cooking meals for those in the community that were impacted by the disaster, acting as one of the first community responders.
At the time, she was cooking around 50 meals a week from home, using donated food, to help locals get through the trying times, and decided to take it a step further and help more locals in need.
She started cooking meals for more members of the community struggling with mental health, escaping family violence, struggling financially or with housing or supporting disaster relief in the community, as well as the unwell and elderly, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait families across Knox and the Yarra Ranges.
Nowadays Ms Giang supports hundreds of families around the Hills, with her team of volunteers helping to cook between 600-800 meals every week.
“With the cost of living being so high at the moment, we can see that the need is there, and we want to do what we can to help,” she said.
FOFA is 100 per cent volunteer run, with locals from Knox and the Yarra Ranges working together to cook meals, distribute them via their partner agencies Food Bank and Outer East Food Share, and support those in need.
“Not only do we do all of the cooking, we also have to fundraise ourselves with sausage sizzles, cake bakes, and sometimes we are provided community grants to keep going,” said Ms Giang.
To date the FOFA has already cooked and supplied approximately 15,000 meals for the community this year, and are expecting their grand total to be around the 24,000 mark at the end of 2023.
