Caring for community

Cornella Care began almost by chance, as the three local churches came together for mutual funding.

“We decided we were going to have an ecumenical progressive dinner,” founding member Glen Avard said.

“We went to the three courses, hosted by the three different churches in their homes, and we came out of it with a profit of $300 for each guild, but we didn't have a guild, so we thought well we might make one.

“So after Mass one Sunday we had a meeting and elected a president, secretary and treasurer.”

The group has always been about local support, but it started with one task.

“What we did was catering for funerals,” Glen said.

Founding member and secretary Maree Stewart said the catering was a big help for the family and one you didn’t realise you needed until you did.

“When you were the family, you realised how important it was when someone in your own family died, and then you didn’t have to worry about funeral catering, it was fantastic,” she said.

Nowadays, their calendars are filled with a coffee and cake on the first and third Tuesday of every month, a tradition that started when socialising wasn’t as easy.

“In COVID-19, we weren’t seeing each other at church, well, we weren’t seeing people anywhere, and then they brought in the you could have 10 in a public place rule and not in your home,” Glen said.

“We asked (Colbinabbin Hotel owner) Julie do you think we could come meet at the hotel, and she said ‘oh yes, no worries’, as she does, and so we’ve been doing that for four or five years now.”

Their main fundraising is for the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, with recent projects including installing a handrail, a ramp and a digital projector.

The church is about 10 minutes outside the centre of town, with bush on one side and paddocks as far as the eye can see on the other.

“The reason it was built out there in the bush really was because when they were raising money for it, there was a competition and that area won,” Maree said.

She pinned it down to the strong farming community in Colbinabbin, a trend which she didn’t see winding down, just evolving.

“Farming’s still a massive part of the town. A lot of these young people who have been having children are farmers,” she said.

Cornella Care treasurer Pamela Nihll said in the area, the average age would be lower than the national average.

“Must be 40 or 50,” she said.

“With all these young people, you would imagine that there would be some future.”

Canola and wheat are a main part of the local farming landscape, but group members agree that sheep farming is on the out.

“It used to be more wheat and oats and barley and more sheep. A lot of people are going out of sheep now,” Maree said.

Pamela said that although some may be dropping livestock, it would never leave the Nihll bloodline.

When the group meets at Colbinabbin Hotel, or as they call it, ‘the Colbo’, they are a short walk away from the silo trail.

Maree has a special connection to the silos, with her husband being on the committee when it was first introduced.

“It was painted during a COVID-19 lockdown,” she said.

“It was very secret and they had lots of input from all the community about what we should put on there and then the committee had to decide what to put on there. They weren’t allowed to tell anyone and I wasn’t allowed to know.

“The railway line is very important, so that’s why they have that in the centre.”

The left-hand silo shows the Colbo picnic, a feature of the town in the 1920s.

“People came from everywhere to visit it and my grandparents met at the picnic,” Maree said.

Cornella Care will celebrate its 40th anniversary on Wednesday, November 26.