Sick of cooking? Here’s a message from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre on Tuesday that may be of interest …

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We’ve now hit $29,050 of cancelled catering jobs in Melbourne for our social enterprise due to lockdown & today’s announcement will ⬆️ that again. We will keep paying our casual refugee staff if no work as it’s the right thing to do. But we’d love to instead book out all our Thurs-Sat delivery spots & create even more work.

Order here 👉🏼 https://meals.asrc.org.au/

🙏 Kon ASRC CEO

As we look towards an additional week of lockdown you might be thinking about online resources again, and perhaps contemplating the joy of a meditation session, some online workouts, garden inspiration, online cooking masterclasses or access to interesting new films …

If so check out the Victoria Together website here.

Victoria Together aims to connect and empower Victorian communities through inclusive experiences, to create a sense of belonging for all Victorians.

ENJOY ANYTIME

There’s lots of great stuff!

For example, the Living Stronger online exercise classes are published by COTA (Council on the Aging). There are 15 workout programs for older Victorians to try at home designed by a physiotherapist. Move your body at your pace, and embrace feeling stronger and more energised. Here’s the direct link.

Missing your tram ride to work or the city? Here’s a fun idea. Take a ride on the 96 from home! Watch one of Melbourne's iconic trams as it completes its route from Preston depot to St Kilda while the city starts to wake up.

Unfortunately due to the latest lockdown we had to cancel our in-person launch of Gabe Freeman’s gorgeous collage collection in our street gallery … so we made a little video instead. You can watch it here.

But of course, if you live in the ‘hood you can take a stroll past anytime and check it out.

Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery is a 24/7 community arts initiative celebrating and sharing creativity in our local neighbourhood.

Local Gabe Freeman is the next artist to feature in Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery, the paste up gallery on the fence at Alphington Community Centre.

We’ll be launching her works this Friday (16 July) at 11.30am at Morning Tea on the Corner. Come along for coffee, cake, a chat … and help us support local artists and celebrate our creative and vibrant community oriented neighbourhood all at the same time.

You can find out more about Gabe here. And get a sneak peak at her work. Or check her out on Instagram here.

Also, we have some beautiful giclee prints in our office for $85 and cards for $5. Pop in anytime we’re open.

We’re delighted to welcome Katrina Forstner to the team to help us make the most of our outdoor spaces in terms 3 and 4.

She’ll be with us on Friday mornings assisting the community gardeners to develop a forward plan for our gardens and 🌱 explore propagating, planting and composting etc. in more detail.

And at 10.30am each week she’ll have arty gardening activities available in the community shed and/or garden suitable for young families and people of all ages and abilities to join in. Just $5 for some arty crafty fun … and then stay on for morning tea at 11.30am.

Interested? Here’s what’s coming up:

• 16 July - Collect/sort seeds and make and decorate seed packets to take home as a gift or for community distribution via our Seed Library

• 23 July - Smudge sticks with herbs and flowers from the garden

• 30 July - Chase the rainbows away and make a cute cloud wall hanging

• 6 August - Indoor plant propagation and upcycle a can with colour.

It should be a great morning of low key creative fun for grandparents and grandchildren, parents and kinder kids, creative adults and anyone who enjoys spending time doing creative garden based (slightly messy sometimes) activities (with the reward of morning tea afterwards).

Just pop past any Friday morning during school term to check it out and join in. We’ll look forward to seeing you soon.