IT’S time for a kitchen makeover at Springvale Community Centre after it received more than $60,000 in State Government grants.
Centre coordinator Elena Sheldon said the centre received a $25,000 grant to upgrade its computers and $40,000 to upgrade its kitchen to commercial standards in order to train disadvantaged people for work and for nutrition education.
Mulgrave MP Daniel Andrews announced the $25,000 this week as part of a package of funds for the Springvale Community Centre and Dandenong Neighbourhood House.
Ms Sheldon said the $40,000 State Government grant was earned with help from the City of Greater Dandenong.
Both the computer and kitchen upgrade have left Springvale Community Centre staff with broad smiles.
The kitchen will allow the centre to train unemployed people in catering and offer nutritional cooking classes to poor people.
“Once we expand the kitchen we can provide such opportunities,” Ms Sheldon said.
The computer upgrade includes connection to broadband internet and faster hardware to allow the centre to expand on its number of short courses by introducing new software programs that could not run on older machines.
“We have no budget or funding to maintain our computer systems and we have to rely on volunteers,” Ms Sheldon said.
“But the grant has given us all a new lease on life as we can now expand our computer program.”
– Shaun Inguanzo
