The Mullumbimby and District Neighbourhood Centre Inc (MDNC), located at 55 Dalley Street, has a multitude of services to meet community needs.
MDNC manager, Julie Williams, says food security coupled with food waste reduction is very much a part of the service.
‘All aspects are interwoven with recovered food going into ‘More Than a Meal’ and frozen meals, food parcels, dehydrating, and composting.’
Other services the centre provides include: the Recovery Support Service – supporting community recovering from 2022 and Cyclone Alfred; the Listening Space, a counselling service; and Mullum Together – a community listening project that listens to voices in community that are not often heard.
Ms Williams says the hub is about to open longer hours as per pre-Covid, and the community piano is also waiting to be played. ‘People come in now and play the most beautiful music. It brings us all joy.’
JP services
There are specialist domestic and family violence programs which cover Ballina to Tweed, and there are many other social inclusion activities.
‘We also have JP services which are really important,’ she says.
‘JPs are available five days per week. Our JP volunteers contribute their time to community, often when some of the work takes a lot of time and is critical to everyone.
‘It’s a community contribution that is often not acknowledged’.
‘Two thirds of what we do is unfunded’, Ms Williams says. ‘It is challenging, and creates a lot of anxiety when we don’t have the funding to simply open the doors’.
‘But doing nothing is not an option. That’s the place we want to build, the place where we can make a real difference,’ Ms Williams added.
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