Ports support regional investment

More than $93,000 of funding has been shared by 28 groups and projects across southern WA as part of Southern Ports’ first round of its 2024-25 Community Investment Program.

The initiatives supported across the South West, Great Southern and Goldfields-Esperance regions range from sporting and creative endeavours, equipment and infrastructure upgrades, and a variety of events set to be enjoyed by the communities at large.

Southern Ports Chief Executive Officer Keith Wilks said building strong regions is important and supporting local groups deliver valuable services, programs and projects was one valuable way to do contribute. 

“Every time we open the program for applications we learn about more terrific initiatives in our regional communities,” Mr Wilks said.

“That’s what our Community Investment Program is about, supporting local groups to get projects off the ground to strengthen our regions.”

From supporting volunteer-run food relief organisations to theatre groups who bring the community together and raise awareness about social issues at the same time – Southern Ports is supporting a wide range of groups. 

In the South West, Doors Wide Open has received funding to purchase a new chest freezer that will increase the volunteer-run organisation’s capacity to meet food assistance requests.

The organisation has been supporting community members facing a variety of challenges get back on their feet for almost a decade and saw food assistance request grow 80 per cent last year.

“Unfortunately requests for our support continues to grow,” Doors Wide Open Manager Mish Holzknecht said.

“Having a chest freezer will allow us to store pre-made meals – prepared during the budget cooking classes we run – as well as donations of frozen food.”

An educational and enthralling aerial performance about marine ecology will be performed in Albany by Southern Edge Arts with support of the Community Investment Program.

“We’ve developed the concept for Traps and Ladders by working with young people, traditional owners, historians, mental health experts, ecological advisors and a number of key artists,” Southern Edge Arts Artistic Director Annette Carmichael said.

“This is a collaborative performance that we’re looking forward to sharing with the wider community later this year.”

In Esperance, the community’s proven interest in more musical performances will be sated thanks to the Esperance Theatre Guild receiving funding to install new a new sound system at the heritage-listed Bijou Theatre.

“The community has shown they are interested in musical performances and to deliver those we need crisp high quality audio systems in place,” Esperance Theatre Guild President Barry Wroth said.

“We’re thankful to Southern Ports for supporting our project and I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of the team in the front row during our next run of shows.” 

Applications for the next round of funding are open until Monday 11 November.

Last year, Southern Ports invested more than $300,000 into the southern regions of Western Australia across its three rounds of its Community Investment Program. 

For more information about the program read about our Community Investment Program here.