City of Yarra council provided volunteers in Yarra with certificates to appreciate their community work during the National volunteer day celebration this year. 

“To keep the community together, the volunteers are important for us; we cannot provide the services as much as we do without them” said Councillor Amanda Stone, City of Yarra Mayor. 

For the first time City of Yarra certified volunteers for their work in Yarra.  It is also to mark the culmination of Yarra Volunteering program, a 2 year  federal government funded project to promote volunteering in Yarra; the project will end in August this year.

The celebration was held at Fitzroy town hall and attended by 180 volunteers from 33 community organisations in Yarra, some of whom have been working for 5 years.  The volunteers were entertained and served by non volunteer workers on the celebration night.

“Initially we had criteria of a minimum five years service to be allegeable to receive certificates, when we reached 200 people registered then we relax the criteria to minimum 6 months.  We produced 405 certificates” said Jason Twomey one of the main event organisers. 

To volunteers, this certification made them feel proud of what they are doing.  To many, doing volunteer work is more than just to gain an acknowledgement; but also as a way to be active and heal health issues they have been suffering.  

One of the volunteers who attended the celebration and received a certificate was Jessica Liana 56 year old Richmond housing estate resident.  She volunteered her time 4 times a week to work at Five High Café, a North Richmond Community Health Centre’s café to provide cheap and healthy food for residents of Richmond housing estate. 

For Liana, doing volunteer work helps her to relieve stress and anxiety that she has been suffering for years.  “I am happy doing the work, apart from being able to meet with friends, I can also forget my health problems” Liana said.

The same enjoyment is also shared by Steve Gibson, a Collingwood housing estate resident who has been working for Office of Housing Neighbourhood Renewal project for 30 hours a week for the last 5 years. 

“It gives me something to do; it opens my eyes by meeting people from diverse backgrounds.  It is quite rewarding and I encourage other people to do the same” said Gibson.

The event will become an annual activity at City of Yarra. 

*Kagoya is a participant of yarraReporter, an Infoxchange project to train public housing estate residents on civic journalism.