On Wednesday 21 April 2021, after a beautiful welcome to Country in language, two young children turned a sod of land at 2 Myall Avenue, Taree to mark the start of construction for the First Steps Count project. This marked the culmination of 12 years of collective effort to realise a wonderful dream. More than 50 people celebrated this start to the construction of a beautiful place that will support and nurture a one stop facility for families experiencing difficulty. The project is aiming to achieve the Living Building Challenge certification, whose aim to make every act positive and regenerative, not less bad, accurately matches the Centre’s own aims.
Twelve years has been spent on building the community of people who will deliver both the physical environment and the services it will house. The toughest part? Finding the money for this essential service that will create a template for similar places throughout the state, customised to their specific ecologies of place, people and culture. I still can’t believe that people - especially governments - have not been bending over backward to help make this happen, as helping people in such a caring, nature connected way, at the start of their lives has so many cascading benefits.
Still - there we are. The project is about to start with Stage 1 and we look forward to finding the additional funds to complete the whole dream.
