By Ewen McRae
The Olympics are less than a year away, but Melton got a little taste of it last week as community support services gathered for the Outreach Olympics.
Organised by Hope Street Youth and Family Services, the day brought together representatives from Kirrip House, Headspace, local churches, council, and state parliament for a series of team events to promote their services and show the community they were working together.
Among the events on the day were a 3km treadmill run, swimming, sack race and obstacle course, and Hope Street community engagement officer Melissa De Santis said it was a huge success.
“The Melton community is a very giving community, and I think this was about showing how closely all the service providers work together,“ Ms De Santis said.
“Raising awareness in the community about the work that all these groups do is really important, but also promoting the positive impacts of physical activity.
“We know it’s proven that if you’re active regularly it does keep you away from ricky behaviours and improves your mental well being. To see everyone having fun while being active was the main idea of the day.“
The team from Kirrip House won the trophy as the best performing team at the end of the day, and Ms De Santis said it was important that these support services continued to get support from the community.
“There is a need for all of these services,“ she said.
“We’re all on the same page about wanting to reduce youth homelessness, because there’s nothing worse than seeing young people sleeping at a bus stop or on a train.
“I think people underestimate how big the problem is, and especially with Christmas coming up the work that we do and all the other service providers do is hugely important.“
