Wallara received a helping hand from the Dandenong Plaza team.
For the past five years, the centre management staff at the RetPro-managed shopping centre have volunteered one day each year to community partners to give back, team build, have fun, and grow as individuals.
This year the wider RetPro team partnered with Dandenong-based adult disability support service Wallara to spend a day at inclusive community farm Sages Cottage in Baxter on Friday 20 October.
The crew showed off their handyman and landscape design skills as they built a new polyhouse for growing plants.
A handful of local contractors also volunteered their time.
In the past, the team has built sensory gardens at Springvale Park Special Developmental School, and refurbished animal shelters and upgraded facilities at Sages Cottage.
Dandenong Plaza’s community partnership with Wallara also includes an ongoing pop up shop within the centre on Level 2, which was established three years ago.
Wallara’s community general manager Mary Chan said the shop had been “a fantastic opportunity for those people wishing to develop money-handling and retail skills and for the community to learn more about disability in general”.
Dandenong Plaza centre manager Mark Tannahill said it was a privilege to have the Wallara pop up shop “and expose our shoppers to the great work that Wallara does”.