Engaging Young People with the Mountains

As we enjoy spring and look ahead to summer, here are some updates to share with you.

Firstly, we want to bid a heartfelt farewell to our former directors, Kay and Toby, along with Meri and South. Thanks from the whole community for your dedication to the place, the staff and the young people over the last few years. With their departure, we are excited to welcome Dan and Juliette, along with baby Rowan, who have taken over directorial duties for the remainder of the year. 

As we head into what looks to be a hot and dry summer in Victoria, we have been busy preparing the property to ensure the safety of staff and the young people who visit us. We have also been in the process of upgrading our flying fox, which has meant a lot of wading across the beautiful Macalister River. 

In recent weeks, we've had the pleasure of running school holiday programs for young people new to Wollangarra (Stage I) as well as some for those who have been before (Stage II and III). These programs have been a fantastic opportunity for young people to immerse themselves in our beautiful surroundings while also giving back to the community. Participants have been hard at work doing track maintenance on local walks and giving our property some much-needed TLC. Huge thank you to the many volunteers who have offered their time and expertise to help run these programs. 

We've also had several weekend work parties, including the ever-popular Wood Chop event. Thanks to everyone's hard work, the woodshed is now fully stocked and ready to keep us warm during the colder months. More recently, we had the pleasure of running the Hop fundraiser in collaboration with Mittagundi. It was an evening filled with music, delicious food, and dancing, and was a testament to the strong sense of community that surrounds Wollangarra.

Thank you for your ongoing support and dedication to Wollangarra. We look forward to sharing more adventures and updates with you in the coming months.

The first half of the year has been wonderful at Wollangarra. We have been able to run all of our events and programs so far! The Staff have completed all of their training and are ready to take on any challenge. We have run some great programs already, some Holiday Stage 1 and 2 programs, some school programs and we also ran a sponsored program for Foundation House for refugees. The weather has been kind to us this year with many sunny autumn days so far. The river is still surprisingly low and clear for this time of year and although very cold, everyone is still enjoying having icy dips! The leaves have started to turn colour and some trees have lost their leaves all together. With a few more programs and Holiday programs to go before our July winter break, we are sure to see ~200 young people make their way through Wollangarra and into the mountains, reconnecting to the basic ways of living, cooking on fires and getting in touch with nature, each other and themselves. We also have our annual wood chop event coming from 10th-12th June and already we have a full RSVP list of over 40 people. Wollangarra is now starting to recover from Covid times and we are seeing the community come back together and more new young people visiting Woll. We have also had many volunteers come up for this first half of the year to support Woll and the Staff working here, great vibes all around. There are also big changes occurring on the flats, with a permaculture design plan in place for the property, the Woll garden is one of the things that is changing on the flats - a plan is currently being hashed out for a new garden space that requires less maintenance brings higher yields and can be used as effective learning tool for young people on sustainable living. We look forward to the rest of the year being just as fun and full of events and programs and are embracing this delightful winter weather!