With Volunteer Week coming up from 20-26 May this year, Frontier Services shares some stories from it’s Outback Links program.
When people in a community go through a crisis, it can break them or it can bring them together.
In this small rural NSW town, strangers are greeted as warmly as friends, and friends are looked after like family. Alexa, who helps run the Cobargo Community Garden, arrived shortly after the fires and says the community is wonderful.
“I’ve felt very welcomed and embraced, even after the multiple crises they’ve been through.”
Throughout the Black Summer bushfires, the Cobargo Co-op, Cobargo Commons (“Cocos”), and local pub, all pitched in to make sure everyone made it through. Cocos is looking to keep that momentum going.
With many people already growing their own gardens, the Community Garden is a place where people come to connect and share knowledge. Initiatives like a “10×10”, where ten people come together for ten weeks to learn how to grow veggies from a “master grower”, give people practical skills that they can use at home.
Alexa says, “Everyone’s really creative around here, and everyone supports each other’s projects in a really beautiful way.”For people who are isolated or facing financial hardship, having a place to spend time with others, where they can exist without pressure, is a huge relief.
Following the bushfires and through the pandemic, the garden fell into disuse and became overgrown.
When the Outback Links volunteers from the NRMA arrived to help reinvigorate the Cobargo Community Garden, it was a boost that was sorely needed.
In a matter of two days, grass which stood four-foot tall was mowed neatly, sections of the garden were weeded, and new veggies were planted.
It was the start of something even bigger. Shelves were fitted to an adjoining shed to start plans for a small library and rubble was removed from land on a local property, where the Post Office operators David and Kyle lost their home.
In the nearby town of Quaama, volunteers weeded and pruned the garden area surrounding the Community Hall, which served as an evacuation centre during the fires.
Your support means we can show town’s like Cobargo that they may be isolated, but they are not alone.
If you’d like to become an Outback Links volunteer, or if you know someone in rural Australia who would benefit from the help of volunteers, visit the Frontier Services Outback Links.
