Discover the Elara Community Hub
Living at Elara is about so much more than the house you live in. The entire community becomes an extension of your home, from our parks and playgrounds to our central amenity.
Today, we wanted to showcase a well-loved community space that can be found at the very heart of Elara – our Community Hub.
The space is simple, but its purpose is great: to bring the Elara community together and provide services and support to help our residents thrive.
To learn more about this valuable community resource, we sat down with Angela Van Dyke, CEO of North-West Community Services, the community group who run the Hub.
Tell us about how you got involved with the Elara Community Hub.
North-West Community Services has been around since the 70s and as a not-for-profit, our focus is on connecting people to support and services.
We’ve been working with Stockland for about two years to manage the hub, look after the hirers and seek out opportunities for the space to be used in diverse, meaningful ways. We work with specialist staff along with our network of over 100 organisations to deliver a full calendar of services, events and activities.
What sort of things have you delivered over the past two years?
All sorts of things. We run a weekly playgroup, we do school holiday activities, art workshops, sound healing – things to focus on wellbeing. We hold first aid training, Work Connect employment workshops, English conversation groups, and drop-in in-reach where specialists like health services or legal services come into the community.
And we do a lot of events too – Christmas, Diwali, Ramadan, Biggest Morning Tea, kids discos.
Do you have a favourite memory or story about your involvement with the Elara Community Hub?
One thing that comes to mind is our street library, which sits right outside the Hub. It started as a piece of old donated furniture, which the men’s shed group in our aged care program fixed up. Then we got the children from our Elara playgroup to do some creative work decorating it.
Today, it’s very well used – people bring books in, people take books out – and it’s never been vandalised; everyone has a sense of ownership over it.
It’s touched so many parts of the community, from its creation to its ongoing use, and now it sits there as a great way to promote literacy in the community.
Why do you think a service like this is so important?
The beauty of the model that Stockland has adopted at Elara is that it capitalises on both the local strengths in the area and a local neighbourhood centre that can connect the community to everything that’s on offer.
All our events are also free, which is important to build connectivity and cohesion and harmony.
The feedback has been really positive and people have experienced life-changing outcomes. We’ve had families with elderly members who we’ve been able to connect to aged care, and we’ve had families who were really struggling with bills, and we’ve been able to get them help with EAPA vouchers and food relief.
Our mission is to build community together – which is actually very close to Stockland’s. We share similar values and I’m really proud of the work we’ve all done together.
Feeling inspired? Take a look at the Elara Community Hub’s latest activities calendar for a glimpse of what our residents have to look forward to in March - from weekly playgroup to crafts and cultural dance.
If you’re thinking about starting your next chapter at Elara, reach out our friendly team today.