Six students have come together to design and plan a new café for Kilmore District Health.
Facilitated by the Central Ranges Local Learning and Employment Network, LLEN, students from Wallan Secondary College, Assumption College, Broadford Secondary College and Seymour Flexible Learning Centre are taking part in the six-week program to establish a café at the hospital.
Kilmore District Health does not currently have a cafe on site, with staff and patrons required to travel into the heart of Kilmore for coffee or morning tea.
Wallan Secondary College careers practitioner Tonya Frost said the café would be available for everyone at the hospital.
“At the hospital, we have a room to do all our planning and we are starting from scratch to survey all the staff, patients, visitors and residents to find out what they want to see in a café at the Kilmore Hospital,” she said.
“Amanda Byrne is in charge of the education department at the hospital and so it’s a collaboration between her team and the Central Ranges LLEN to get it organised. I think they’re big coffee-lovers, so they were keen to get something on board.”
Meeting on Thursday for its third week, the group worked to survey staff and measure the planned location for the café.
Ms Frost said the group had not yet secured funding but would soon look towards reaching out to community groups to help get the café up and running.
“Hopefully [by the end of the six weeks] we’ll have fully designed it and we’ll have some funding in place from some community groups,” she said.
“We haven’t approached anyone yet, but that’s our plan to put it together and get it up and running so it can be used by the whole community.”
Ms Frost said she hoped everyone would benefit from the café and was excited that students were enjoying the process.
“It’s just a good community project and it’s not something that just the staff will benefit from. It’ll be something that the whole community can use at some point,” she said.
“We’re going to set up a nice outdoor area, and we’ve had a look at different cafés in the area and what they offer and how we might be able to offer those things at this café.
“I’m surprised the kids are really quite into it – they’re enjoying the process for sure.”
