Nominated for not one but three separate awards in 2024’s Ballina Shire Australia Day event is WardellCORE (Community Organised Resilience Effort), which has been instrumental in Wardell’s ongoing recovery since the 2022 floods. The Echo caught up with Joel Orchard to find out more.
He said WardellCORE was honoured and grateful to be nominated. ‘It’s a fantastic celebration of the extraordinary effort that the community here, and especially all the volunteers have made – making such a great impact on so many people’s lives. We’re thrilled to have that recognised.’
The three categories for which they’ve been nominated are Volunteer, Environmental and Community Event of 2023, which in WardellCORE’s case is for their epic One Year On event, marking a year since the flood disaster struck.
‘That was so positive, and the community’s strong feedback was that they wanted to see it as an annual event,’ said Mr Orchard.
‘So we have plans to repeat it this year, on 2 March. We’re going to try and make that an annual festival for the community.’
Fire ants!
Wardell is currently in the news for the fire ant outbreak, with the dangerous insects found nesting in a garden at the temporary pod village in the second NSW outbreak in recent times. How’s everyone coping?
‘It’s obviously distressing for a lot of people, especially anyone in the agricultural industry around here. In fact, we’ve already had a member of the community come in today quite distressed, and because we’re a mental health facility, we’re able to support them,’ explained Mr Orchard.
‘I imagine this will cause ongoing stress for a number of people. So we’re here for everyone. It’s not likely to be something that goes away any time soon. Everyone’s bracing themselves for some form of quarantine.’
The NSW DPI staff are currently set up at Wardell Community Hall, providing public information about the fire ant issue. ‘Best case scenario, this is a one-off incident. It’s quickly resolved and we go back to normal, but I think everyone here is on pretty high alert,’ said Mr Orchard.
‘My personal feeling is the quarantine at the border is reasonably good.
‘How these have snuck through, who knows, but you’ve got mobile ants, on machinery in soils, floating in floods and also flying as queens move from one place to another. So it’s definitely going to be a difficult issue to deal with.
‘As we’ve seen with the varroa mites, once these things get out of quarantine, they’re very hard to control in the wild.’
Baseload funding
Apart from ants and floods, things have been looking a lot more positive for Wardell and WardellCORE recently. Can you tell us about that big grant you got late last year?
‘Yes, we received an amazing contribution from the Northern Rivers Community Foundation, they’ve funded us for three years in a row. That will help us with our baseload funding,’ said Mr Orchard.
‘We’ve received a lot of criticism from some quarters for having all this money. But as you would understand, it doesn’t go very far. We’re certainly not out of the woods yet. We’ve been very fortunate to be quite successful with applications that we’ve applied for. That’s based number one on our merit, and clearly our demonstration of capability here.
‘Things like Australia Day Award nominations and the NSW Resilience Awards that we’ve received clearly show that we’re doing a very good job, and I’m proud to be a part of that,’ said Joel Orchard.
‘Community organizations are exceptionally financially savvy, compared to government agencies, for example.
‘You’re talking in magnitudes of costs. Communities are very well situated to deliver this kind of program themselves, and grant funding is essential.
‘It’s important to remember the turnaround time of disaster recovery is really long. I think it’s understated, how long it takes for communities to get back on their feet. We anticipate WardellCORE being needed to support people, just from flood recovery, for years yet.
‘So these kinds of grants are essential to keeping us alive, and remaining available here for people who are still experiencing crisis.’
It must be gratified to be recognised beyond the region, at a state level?
‘It’s a testament to an amazing group of people that have really come together here. And we constantly reflect as a team that no one involved here knew each other before the flood; it’s been an amazing galvanising of people who have really big hearts and contribute an enormous amount of their time to helping others. That is really quite a beautiful thing.
‘Also, we’ve been really lucky to lean on competence and skills that exists in the community and pulled together a very robust and holistic support program. Our mental health team are now funded for another 12 months, and we hope that we can extend that.
‘That team are very, very busy. The impacts of this natural disaster on people and their lives really can’t be overstated. The availability of this type of support is quite crucial.’
Some more positive news out of Wardell recently has been the multi-use sports courts, which was an initiative supported by WardellCORE?
‘Yes, it’s such a great success for this community. Our part in that was really just being a conduit for people to express their views and their voice.
‘As a community organisation, we’ve developed a really strong communications network that offers great advantages in times of crisis, especially alerting people to disasters and weather events, whether it’s fire ants or whatever, you know, and that’s a part of our disaster preparation strategy.
‘But it also gives the community a great opportunity to express what they desire for their village, and the community courts have definitely been one of those things,’ he said.
‘There’s much more diversity now, so many more activities for people and especially young people in this community. What’s come through strongly is that there was just nothing here for young people to be able to participate in. Now there’s basketball and futsal and lots of other sports. The kids have somewhere to let off steam and run about, so we really support that.’
Popular fundraiser coming up
Joel Orchard told The Echo the Small Halls Festival was on its way to Wardell Hall this coming Sunday, from Woodford in Queensland. ‘We’re super excited to be able to host that here. This is the largest venue on their tour, and they’re super stoked that we’ve sold that event out already. So yeah, we’re really looking forward to that.’
Mr Orchard said the event was in part a fundraiser for WardellCORE, but that wasn’t the main point. ‘Really, it’s just another great thing to bring to this town, and we’re all about creating opportunities for people to get out and have a good time.’
With 200 tickets already sold, there is now a wait list in case any more seats become available. Beyond that, stay tuned for the Wardell River Festival on 2 March.
As far as WardellCORE is concerned, the hope is that the organisation can become a permanent community facility for the people of Wardell. As Joel Orchard puts it, ‘If we can sustain ourselves here, then I think that will be a great result for everyone.’
Ballina Shire’s Australia Day Awards will be announced at the Lennox Head Cultural Centre this Friday, 26 January. More information about the Australia Day event is available here.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
