This week is National Recycling Week and we’ve been celebrating recycling in our programs. We kicked off with Visible Mending Club on the weekend and sent along some fabulous potential mending supplies for the group that Anne had kindly donated (patches and lace and all sorts of interesting things) … then offered a range of fun recycled craft activities for playgroups … and will finish the week mixing up recycling with gardening … making recycled seed packets for seeds we’ve saved from the garden and also potting up some of the lettuce seedlings we’ve been growing - again in recycled pots and tins.

And we made this great sign as well! Just for fun. Using a whole range of donated/recycled things we had hanging around … so Happy National Recycling Week.

Join the Yarra Circular Living Challenge 

Interested in a more sustainable and regenerative future?

The Circular Living Challenge is a 30-day challenge focused on engaging the community and local merchants in the City of Yarra to build a more circular economy.

Brought to you by Circular Economy Victoria and Reducing our Footprint, this initiative will take place from the 19 September to the 14 October.

Access the challenge on your smartphone, tablet or computer, practice sustainable behaviours in your community, earn points and track your progress to become a sustainability champion.

The participation is open and free of charge, but we only have a limited number of spots available. Register your interest today and be part of the change towards a more sustainable City of Yarra!

This program is supported through the Climate Action stream of the Yarra Council’s Annual Grants Program.

You can find out more here.

Did you know we have a compost hub at ACC? It is not huge - just two bins - but they are available for our community to contribute to (if you don’t have your own system at home etc.).

Clare manages them on a Friday … and with a little love (and weekly turning) they are amazingly productive.

We have a collection of neighbours and friends who contribute their kitchen scraps regularly which is just lovely … and we use the compost generated to keep our community garden beds healthy … so we can grow food to share! Like our little seeds that have just been planted and will hopefully pop through the soil any day now.

Last week Melbourne Farmers Market was awarded the national ‘Outstanding Farmers Market Community Initiative’ for work tackling food security in Melbourne.

This initiative is a credit to the Moving Feast partnership.

In lockdown when farmers were struggling to sell produce in the downturn of hospitality and, at the same time so many vulnerable Victorians were without fresh food, MFM connected the dots.

Since then they have sourced almost 50 tonnes of local, seasonal, high-quality food to share with partners DIVRS (Darebin Information Volunteer Resource Service), Cultivating Community and STREAT who work directly with people in need in the City of Darebin, Yarra and Melbourne.

They also set about growing more food at Alphington Community Food Hub to share with vulnerable communities into the future - the boxes along the Yarana Road perimeter are managed by DIVRS and STREAT as part of a ‘grow it forward’ project - where the community grows and shares with others.

Super hey? Aren’t we lucky to have such great community initiatives incubated in our neighbourhood!

Over the last year the Darebin Neighbourhood House Network (us, Bridge Darebin, Jika, PRACE, Reservoir and SPAN) has been working together on a climate action and resilience plan.

It has been a super process to go through and we’ve all learnt a lot.

The hard copy documents are available here for your reading pleasure and there’s also a little animation Lee made explaining all about it. It is pretty gorgeous.

DHNHN Climate Action and Resilience Plan