Community in the Dandenong Ranges Victoria

Community in the Dandenong Ranges, the spirit of looking after the people and the place, knowing people at the shops, at local sport and other activities.

“It takes a Village to raise a child” It takes a disaster to realise the depth of Community.

When the bushfires hit in the summer of 2020, Australians rallied behind the hard-hit communities in NSW and regional Victoria. Facebook groups sprung up about buying from the bush and taking an esky to an impacted community and filling it up with goods from local stores.

Little did we know that a global pandemic would follow close behind.

The Community in the Dandenong Ranges

2020 and 2021, particularly in Melbourne, showed a large proportion of our population, that their community was not what they thought. Working from home, homeschooling, stuck with five reasons to leave and restricted to a 5k radius. What was in our community?

The Hills Community thrived. Mums of the Hills supported our local mums, we only saw locals when we ventured out for ‘exercise’ or to shop. Our thriving, bustling Villages were quiet and cafes tried desperately to stay open and serve the locals and keep their businesses happening.

This was Community. We supported, we engaged, we got to know each other a whole lot better.

We encouraged our neighbours to seek us out if they needed anything, even a chat over the fence. Much easier than in ‘the burbs’ because we rarely have paling fences to try and peer over. A star picket and strand of wire, chicken wire or the occasional deer farm or cyclone wire fencing is more our norm.

We thrived on being ‘local’.

As time wore on, and wear us down it did. As the ‘short, sharp lockdown’ turned into over 200 days for Victorians, we started to plan, to plan to flee interstate, to move our households to less covid impacted places.

Strong Community in the Dandenong Ranges

Again, our Community stayed strong. We were tired. We were thoroughly ‘over it’. Our children wanted to see their friends – they wanted to go back to school (generally speaking of course). We desperately wanted to see family and friends that were not within our 5ks. We missed weddings, funerals, birthdays, Engagement parties and births of babies. What was life without these celebrations?

We were Hills locals. We live in one of the most beautiful environments in the State of Victoria – if not the world. We remained almost covid free. A mask was something you only occasionally needed.

Then it hit.

More Adversity, Thriving Community

June 9 2021.

The worst storm I have experienced in my lifetime in the Hills.

Over 100 homes lost. Homes and lives shattered. Survivor guilt from those of us that were barely impacted – we lost power for 15 days but were grateful that that was it.

Community. We rallied. Our Community created safe havens of food, company, commiserations and support. It took a while for outside help to arrive. We felt ‘unseen’. Our local minister made it to Traralgon before Kalorama. How on earth did that happen? Were we invisible or unimportant?

Strong community. My community. We were very fortunate as no lives were lost – injured, but not lost.

We recover, we mainly move on, we don’t forget the strength of community or the losses. We are reminded by the magnificent Mountain Ash lying on the ground – everywhere it seemed.

The destruction of William Ricketts (my childhood playground – sorry Bill, absolute respect for your mystical creation as an adult), our National Parks, our streets.

Covid chose then to hit locally. We were no longer at the fringe. We were impacted directly. Suddenly we knew people and businesses that were infected. Close to home, in our homes.

Divided community.

Anti vaxxers, freedom, pro vaxxers (please just let us get back to some form of normality).

Signs of recovery, of freedom, restrictions lifting, joy in our Community. Kids back at school, local sport gearing up, tourist influx preparations begin.

Will we go back to life as we knew it pre-March 2020? Probably not. We are older, wiser and much more appreciative of where we live and how lucky, how extremely fortunate we are, to live in the Dandenong Ranges.

Community tied together because we love where we live.