Op Shop Rebuild Appeal

On the morning of Monday 9th November 2020 the Op Shop caught ablaze in a suspected arson attack. This was devastating to the Winchelsea community and to the Auxiliary volunteers who had been so generous with their time to open and develop the shop.

Not only did the residents of Winchelsea lose an important community connection, but Hesse’s aged care residents also felt the loss of this space, they loved nothing more than to wander up to the shop to check out the latest stock or just pop in for a chat.

From the ashes raised a concept for a new shop, bigger than before, to accommodate the growing community needs and establish a new base for the Auxiliary, while providing much needed fundraising to Hesse Rural Health.

Stage 1 in Final Planning

Stage 1 is now in final planning to be completed in 2025. This will deliver a restored and refurbished building to the old bakery site to operate from. With a heritage overlay and significant design challenges, it’s taken longer than expected but we are happy to declare that we have the funding secured to restore the building into a space appropriate for use in the 21st century whilst keeping the elements of its heritage from the late 19th century when it was originally built.

Stage 2 – Extension

Stage 2 of the rebuilding process involves adding an extension on the back of the new Op Shop site. The more money we can raise for Stage 2 the more we can extend the space to deliver more stock opportunities to the Winchelsea Community.

2024 Spring Raffle

Our latest fundraising endeavour was our Spring Raffle which was drawn at noon on Sunday 10th of November at the Winchelsea Community Market.

The day saw a great turn out and we had great help from the Auxiliary Members as well as staff members of Hesse Rural Health including the CEO and Director of The Board to help man the stall! The stall itself saw the opportunity to sell last minute raffle tickets as well as smoothies from Hesse Rural Health’s very own Smoothie Bike, giving the local community the opportunity to blend up their own smoothies with a gold coin donation.

We raised $5,000 in total from the proceeds of our Spring Raffle!

Keep an eye out for further Hesse Rural Health fundraising events in the future!