Branch members Julia McGregor, Charlotte Della Vedova, Mary Pavlinovich, Tammy Freebairn, Belinda Lay, Kerry Jackson and Debbie Warren at the Whale Tail. Photos: supplied.
Esperance Bay and Districts CWA branch is inviting women, particularly young mums, to consider joining the group.
Branch president Charlotte Della Vedova said the branch was started by a group of quite dynamic women who wanted to effect change and do things outside of what they considered “normal” for CWA.
“We as a group want to be community supportive so we work in tandem with Eat Up, a group in NSW,” she said.
“We provide sandwiches for the local schools for lunches.”
Ms Della Vedova said every month the schools were open they provided about 650 sandwiches for primary school kids who arrived at school with no lunch or lunch money.
“We distribute them to the schools along with some fruit and that is funded by Eat Up,” she said.
“They toast them up every lunch time for the kids.”
Ms Della Vedova said other community members helped with this activity.
“That’s something that we as a group are really passionate about and we will continue until there isn’t a need,” she said.
“Seven of us can bang 650 sandwiches out in two hours, so people don’t mind making a commitment to help.”
Ms Della Vedova said the Branch also committed to providing meals for volunteer firefighters whenever they had a fire to fight.
“If there is an emergency we can be very quick to respond to provide emergency needs,” she said.
“The Shire’s job is easier because they don’t have to find someone to make Spaghetti Bolognaise for the volunteers.”
Ms Della Vedova said when the Branch took on this job there was no suitable mobile catering kitchen.
“We took it upon ourselves to get hold of an old caravan,” she said.
“We gutted it and we sought funding from various bodies and we now have a fully functioning catering caravan.
“That is one of our main fundraising goals every year, we have funded enough to keep that catering van up and ready to go.”
Ms Della Vedova said they made the van available to some other community groups to use in their fundraising.
“The Rotary Club use it to provide food to the Police Legacy Ride,” she said.
“The Driver Reviver guys used to use our van to provide teas and coffees and we would provide biscuits.”
Ms Della Vedova said for the past year they had worked to provide an activity every week.
In the first week of the month they ran a craft-based group, Eat Up in the second week and in the third week the formal meeting, often with a guest speaker.
“We have had road trauma people, we have had people from Dementia Australia, and whenever we have those we open to the public,” she said.
“Last time we had Injury Matters, the ‘stay on your feet’ group which is all about keeping healthy as you get older.”
On the fourth week of the month they had a social night at a local restaurant, with partners invited.
Ms Della Vedova said as a women’s group they tried to effect change on a state-wide basis.
A cause she said they embraced at present was compulsory lights on rail cars.
“Because CWA has got that kind of political clout there are women in the group whose interests lies in lobbying the government to improve things for country people,” she said.
“Now there are almost as many city-based groups as in the country and they do a lot of things.
“They do a lot of support for people living with domestic violence.”
Every year, she said the group generally did something for Lachies House, which provides crisis accommodation.
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“That’s very important to all of us,” she said.
“We drop a hamper off and we would like to think if they needed any more assistance we would be able to step in and help out.”
Mrs Della Vedova said whenever they could, they worked with the other five CWA branches in the Esperance area to meet community needs.
“I know other CWAs do books at the school for example, there are lots of ways CWAs keep things going,” she said.
“One group does children’s toiletry packs.”
They also work in with other organisations.
“If we work together we can effect change,” she said.
“Working with other groups such as Rotary for good outcomes for Esperance is far more important to us than just us doing stuff.”
Women interested in the group are invited to email espbaydistricts@hotmail.com or find the facebook group Esperance Bay & Districts CWA.
