Edithburgh Connect Craft Group
The Edithburgh Connect Craft group is a wonderful example of how our Doing good for SA grants can really make a difference for a volunteer group that supports their local community. The Edithburgh Connect Craft group meets every Wednesday at the Edithburgh Light Church, and have been for the past 11 years. It is a group that brings local people together from various small surrounding towns and in doing so it provides friendship and support to the local members of the community.
The Edithburgh Connect Craft Group has now received 2 grants through our program. The first grant gave their craft group a much-needed boost by providing the funds for equipment, new craft supplies, and the chance for their members to learn some more skills. Like many volunteer groups, the Edithburgh Craft group mainly relies on donations of materials for various projects or Op-shop bits & pieces. They do an amazing job through lots of Recycle, Reuse, and Repurpose, but these funds gave them a really boost in going forward.
The first grant of $2,500 has allowed them to purchase a Gemini Taurus 3 Ring Saw which is an amazing tool that can cut tiles, glass, dishes, metal, marble, and timber. Perfect for the group’s love of making mosaics. They also purchased a trolley to move the Taurus and other equipment from our storage area to our workroom so the ladies would no longer need to carry heavy items, making life easier.
Next, the group had the opportunity to learn some new skills and enjoyed the opportunity of experiencing 2 different workshops. The first workshop was by a local lady Suz’Anne, who taught the ladies how to do Copper Foiling (stained glass), and they soon made some lovely hanging stained glass objects.
The second workshop was Dot Painting on large gum leaves and involved a local Aboriginal lady Daphne teaching the group about her culture and art/craft. They looked at symbols used in their culture, then designed their own stories on paper before using simple sticks to paint their story on the leaves. They had a full house for these workshops and had to turn people away, as our room was full to capacity, and you can see some of their beautiful artwork below.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Country Home Services on their initiative with Doing Good 4 SA, Community Grants scheme, as it allows groups like ours to really support local community people by bringing them together for friendship, which really makes a difference. Our grant money has allowed us to do things that we wouldn’t have been able to do without it and to buy equipment that we could never afford. ”
The second grant we helped the group with was for some much-needed support chairs. These adjustable chairs provide some much-needed support for their ladies with Parkinsons and Muscular Dystrophy who particularly needed the armrests to assist them to move in and out of the chairs.
We are delighted to be able to help the Edithburgh Connect Craft Group through the Doing Good in SA Grant Program, and if you are part of a volunteer group that needs some assistance then do contact us to find out how we can support your group.