Locals Annie and Silvana have booked a stall at our upcoming market featuring plants and seedlings … to raise awareness of Kinfolk. All off their own bat.

Which is fabulous … because we actually have a partnership with this organisation and have Kinfolk meals 🥘 in our freezer for anyone needing food support.

Here’s the pitch Annie asked us to share about their stall …. Wonderful!

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Walk away with a fabulous FREE plant from the Makers Market on Saturday 27th. We have plants that are perfect for the balcony, plants that withstand the harshest conditions - the salvias, the succulents and simple daisies. We have plants that flower - button daisies, bush daisies and more. We have herbs.

Every single plant has been grown with love to raise awareness of Kinfolk’s Food Relief Program.

As we emerge from lockdown, we're feeling grateful but not completely unscathed, and we know we're not alone. For many businesses in Melbourne, the impact of necessary but commercially damaging lockdowns has been serious, and the profits few and far between.

Kinfolk are a Melbourne social enterprise, providing in-house capacity building to people from all walks of life, and essential food relief to people in hardship or escaping family violence. Like many in the hospitality industry they are struggling, and need our help to bounce back.

So that’s why at the Alphington Christmas Makers Market, we're inviting you to #PlantForKinfolk🌱!

Pick up a new plant for your post-lockdown garden and check out the pantry re-stocks, staples, and dinners that this wonderful social enterprise and its volunteers keep coming to women in need.

Look forward to seeing you on the day! And look out on Instagram for #plantforkinfolk🌱

We’ve got a big weekend coming up at ACC with the Christmas Makers Market on Saturday from 10am-1pm, and the Alphington Open Studios event also on.

If you’d like to pop past on Friday night between 5-7pm you can help us celebrate the opening of the salon exhibition at ACC that is part of the Alphington Open Studios weekends. Our salon exhibition includes works from all the artists with their studios open over the next two weekends plus works by other local artists. It should give you a lovely snapshot of what’s on offer … Share a drink with us, admire the art, collect a map (if you haven’t got one in your letterbox already) and then plan to take a neighbourhood walk and visit local artists in their studios over the next two weekends. Find out more here.

Then come back on Saturday morning for our Christmas Makers Market. We have 25 stallholders who have been busy making lovely things. This is a great opportunity for you to buy local and support your neighbours creative endeavours this year for Christmas presents.

We hope you can make it!

It has been lovely to have people back at ACC … here’s some pictures from our preserve makers. So … put some medlar jelly, cucumber 🥒 pickles and tomato 🍅 relish on your must buy list this Christmas! Our makers market is coming up next Saturday 27th November. Pop past from 10am-1pm for a sausage sizzle kindly run by the Ivanhoe Rotary, some family friendly Christmas craft … and local shopping. We’ll have 25 stalls all run by people from the neighbourhood selling locally made things … how lovely (and a GREAT way for you to have a more sustainable Christmas by reducing your ‘shopping miles’ through locally made gifts). Hooray!

This week we are looking forward to welcoming back our peer support playgroup friends! I wonder how they have grown …

We are taking Monday and Tuesday off, but are looking forward to getting some more programming up and running in the next few weeks. Here’s what’s on the cards from our discussions this week:

• Japanese playgroup is returning onsite … it will be lovely to see Maimi and the families and especially to see how much the children have grown!

• Matthew is resuming guitar lessons onsite on Monday and Wednesday evenings.

• We are welcoming a new counsellor to ACC. Martina who has recently moved to the neighbourhood will be here one afternoon/evening a week.

• Our Wednesday daytime book club is going to meet in person in November.

• And finally we are looking to resume our Women in the Shed program in a couple of weeks - hooray! Maylei will be taking both classes and Kalimna has been in contact with everyone that was booked in in Term 4 (and 3 I think) to see who would like to get cracking before the end of the year.

It is pretty nice to start doing things in person again, and we are looking forward to a slow and steady resumption of activity.

If you are part of a group that has a plan and haven’t chatted to us yet just give us a call or send an email …

Some of the great kids who come along weekly to Japanese playgroups …