By Brendan Rees
A dedicated group of retirees have breathed new life into the Junction Village Men’s Shed in Cranbourne.
A major upgrade to the shed’s facilities was made possible thanks to a $2,000 grant from the Australian Government’s National Shed Development Programme and a $1000 donation from Aveo Group.
The grants supported the purchase of tools and equipment, community projects and training, building maintenance and development, and health improvement activities.
Men’s Shed spokesman Garry Cahill said the group was delighted with their new work spaces.
“We’ve made bigger benches, we’ve moved our tools around, just gives it a more open look and feel,” he said.
“It’s fantastic; all brand new work benches and each person has got their own work space now. We just decided to completely revamp it again and pull out all the benches and totally rebuild it internally.”
He said five men from the Men’s Shed aged 64 to 88 years old dedicated three months of their time to complete the project.
“We had a two metre skip and we filled that up with rubbish. It just looked so cluttered and now it’s just a lot more attractive to members which we’re looking for.”
Mr Cahill said the Men’s Shed, which is located at the Aveo Botanic Gardens Retirement Village, improved the health and wellbeing by promoting social inclusion.
“The fellas just love going there and contributing, particularly now obviously they’re retired they can now give back to the community, particularly with making the wooden toys.”
He said the men hosted a sausage sizzle fundraiser through Bunnings last Christmas which raised $2800 and helped with the shed’s revamp.
“It’s a new start for us basically. We just had too much junk,” Mr Cahill said.
Federal Minister for Health Greg Hunt, who attended the reopening of the Men’s Shed last week, said the revamp would allow more men in the community to build new friendships, skills and community connections.
“This shed provides great opportunities for residents of the retirement village and the wider general community to be active, create new social connections and put their skills to use to help the disadvantaged,” he said.
“I know that last year seven senior elves made 186 toys made for the Salvation Army to give out at Christmas and they’re already hard at work to beat that number this year.”
The team is looking forward to getting started on their yearly quota of toys for the Salvation Army Children’s Christmas Appeal, hoping to nearly double the amount of toys made from last year due to the upgrades.
