Bowen Community Centre, PCYC Whitsundays, Whitsunday Brahmans score funding

The latest round of funding for local community groups will help run family events and improve facilities in the Whitsundays.

Bowen Community Centre Family Fun Day set to go ahead thanks to new funding. Photo: Contributed

Whitsunday Regional Council have approved three community grants helping groups to host important events and upgrade facilities.

Bowen Community Centre, PCYC Whitsunday, and Proserpine Rugby League Football Club are the three recipients from the 2024/2025 round of Special Projects Grant Program which gives not for profit clubs up to $10,000 for one off projects or events.

Whitsunday Regional Council Mayor, Ry Collins, said it was an area of the business that he took a lot of pride in.

“We want to support our non-for-profit groups in the community,” he said.

“We recognise the important role that they play outside of Council’s normal business and I think having good community groups means we’ve got good, strong connections in our community.

Bowen Community Centre Family Fun Day. Photo: Contributed

Bowen Community Centre will receive $9750 for two events which Mr Collins said would promote their work. 

Executive officer Stephanie Cora said that includes a family fun day where kids could go on rides and collect goodie bags while their families learn about local services.

“If they don’t want to walk through the door here, they have the option to know who’s who in the zoo and how to access them,” she said.

“We also wanted to have something there when kids couldn’t go to the show, because it’s all free, so that they have something that they can look forward to and really encourage that family unit.

“They look at the centre and think it’s a crisis centre but we actually have cooking classes and tech classes and we’ve got such a diverse range of groups that are happening.”

The community centre is also hosting a fashion event promoting their op shop.

Ms Cora said they would love to have local NDIS participants be models for the day as well as inviting other clothing businesses in the area to promote their clothing lines.

“It’s just an all in all good day but also promotes our op shop and how that supported, over the last 15 years, 83 community organisations and also supports the community Christmas gifts.”

PCYC Whitsundays Youth Space before it undergoes upgrades. Photo: Contributed

PCYC Whitsunday will receive $7486 to cover facility upgrades including furniture, whitegoods and painting their Youth Space.

Proserpine Rugby League Football Club will receive $10,000 to cover the costs of developing a ‘master plan’ for the Les Stagg Oval.

Mr Collins said the oval was a council-owned piece of land and they were working with the club to support planning for the future of the facility.

“We’ve been having a bit of a look at our suite of sports clubs in the last 12 months,” he said

“We were recently funded, by the federal government, to do a new regional sports park at Cannon Valley.

Whitsunday Brahman's Les Stagg Oval could undergo upgrades with a new mast plan well on it’s way.

“But really, I think where we’ve got some of those established clubs and established facilities, were still looking to continue our investment into them over a period of time

“That master planning, which is to be led by the Brahmans, develops that forward plan, forward vision for what they see at their facility there and how we can work with them and how they can work to improve that into the future.”

President of Proserpine Rugby League Football Club, Lisa Milne said they were looking at updating the kitchen area and giving the grounds a spruce up.

“It’s challenging to do these kinds of things without that help, it’s very challenging to try and come up with the funds to be able to do those master plans,” she said.

“We were very grateful that we were able to receive it because it means that we’ll be able to finalise our master plan and look at how we can move forward with that and apply for further grants to see if we can bring the master plan to life.”