After a successful first year of Vic Park Soup we are proud to bring back the micro-granting event in 2016. On Tuesday 14th June we invited the local community to join us for dinner to celebrate and support the creative ideas of local residents. As our eager guests arrived at the Dutch Trading Co. we were treated to some enjoyable tunes by local three piece girl band El El La – a benefactor of previous Vic Park Soup winner Gig Start IT (more about that later). Eloise, Eliza and Lacey are inspiring young women, look out for them busking along the strip.As everyone settled in meeting other locals and eating the yummy soup provided by Express Fresh we heard from Marisa Spina from Gig Start IT who won Vic Park Soup back in October. She took home $500 to pass on to teenagers as a 0% micro loan to help them cover their insurance costs for a year. Marisa was lucky enough to form a relationship with the Vic Park Farmers Market who now cover the young busker’s insurance so that the micro loans can be used by the teenagers to buy better instruments to continue their passions. Marisa is clearly also full of passion and not only does she pass on her micro-grant to others but she continues to support the growth of the young musicians by volunteering her own time. It’s great to have previous winners come back and update on their progress.And the winner is...Have you heard of Perth Active Depression Support Group? Well you will be hearing a lot more of them now! Rahul from PADSG is the first winner of Vic Park Soup for 2016 and left with an extra $890 in his pocket thanks to the kindness of our community. It is a newly established group that aims to create recreational meetings for people with mental health issues to get them engaged and active within the community. Members of the peer support group will be able to get indirect support by participating in fun and engaging activities. Rahul made a massive impact on the night, and has already donated a quarter of his funds to GenWHY depression support group as $890 was far too much for PADSG needs.You can check out PADSG's first monthly newsletter here.Thanks also to Callie and Michael who both presented on the night.Local Mum Callie has worked as an Auslan Interpreter in schools for a decade and wanted to be able to help provide some support towards early intervention in mental health with primary school aged children. Callie created Aurora James so that she could use a handmade craft that she loves, to give back to the community. 60% of her profits go towards Parkerville, check out her website to find out more about how her headbands will help make a difference.Michael from Co-Laboratories presented his idea of establishing a community dining space out the front of the Vic Park Mini Lab. The area would give people a desired option to meet, eat, and enjoy the strip with their friends and loved ones, to support rather than compete with the surrounding businesses. How great would that be on a Friday night after getting a slice of pizza for the TGIF Hawkers Markets? You can contact Michael through the Co-Laboratories website if you want to help out, or if you have some leftover building supplies that you want to donate instead of putting on the next verge collection.Did you miss out on our first event for 2016?The next event is going to be a little different. We will only be taking proposals from local schools so that we can showcase all the great ideas from the younger generation, and to support the amazing work that our educators do. So if your child, niece, nephew, granddaughter, grandson or your neighbour's-kid-that-you-always-throw-the-ball-back-for is interested please contact your local school administrator. See you at the Dutch Trading Co on August 9th at 6pm!

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Vic Park Neighbourhood Soup June Winner