Last week WardellCORE was honoured to be commended by Steph Cooke MP Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience, Minister for Flood Recovery and Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons at the Resilience NSW Get Ready Community Awards.

We were absolutely thrilled to join colleagues at the NSW Parliament House from 2 other incredible Northern Rivers organisations in Hub 2484 from Murwillumbah and Shedding Community Workshop Inc from Mullumbimby who were also recognised for their amazing contributions to the community through the recent natural disaster recovery.

We are honoured to be presented with this award and to represent the extraordinary effort, powerful work and support that have been provided to our community at WardellCORE.

This is a wonderful recognition to receive and a fabulous experience to share in solidarity with other successful community-led recovery organisations in the Northern Rivers. It is a great testament to what we can achieve when we all work together. However we recognise that resilience is a long journey and that we have got a long way to go. Lets hope this recognition brings our community more support and resources to rebuild, recover and be better prepared fore the future

Huge thanks to all our volunteers, our supporters, the organisations and partnerships who have given us resources, kindness, motivation and more over the past 7 months. Our community is indebted to your support and service.

Reminder that from this week, OzHarvest will be visiting us at WardellCORE on Wednesday’s from 12.30 to 1.30pm.

Please remember that :

• taking an extra bag for a neighbour/family member is at the discretion of our on-site team and is dependent on stock availability.

• Any requests to reserve more than two bags must be made before the market day by sending a request to omm@ozharvest.org or text/call 0490 241 619 please. OzHarvest will be happy to discuss your circumstances and offer more in depth support if people are immobile or can’t drive.

• OzHarvest’s food relief items are available to anyone in the region doing it tough.

Tax Help is a community program that helps and educates people on low incomes with their individual income tax affairs. People seeking help from a TaxHelp centre are clients. Clients' tax affairs are kept private and confidential.

Community volunteers are trained to give free help to people to prepare their returns online during Tax Time. Tax Help provides ongoing support during taxtime.

You can find out more here :

Come into Wardell CORE to register or make an appointment: Space is now limited with appointments at 1:30, 2:30 and 3:30 available.

Appointments are scheduled for 1hr per year of text returns required.

Wardell Public School Open Day !

Wardell PS will be holding a community open day to celebrate its return to the community this Friday the 14th of October.

The open day will commence at 11:35 with the community invited in to have a look at the temporary facility. Wardell CORE will be on-site to help out and fire up the BBQ from 1pm so drop in for a visit and a snag.

All Welcome

Note that Sugartown Preschool has now co-located at Wardell PS and is no longer at the Catholic Church site.

What do we want for our "Wardell Village Centre Revitalisation" ?

LET'S FOCUS ON THE FUTURE AND MAKE SURE YOUR VOICE IS HEARD!

Council is now inviting local businesses, community groups, residents and visitors to share their thoughts and values through a multi-staged engagement process. Community insights will be essential for developing a Draft Master Plan that aligns with the community’s vision and priorities.

Initially, the community’s input will be collected via two different engagement activities:

Online survey

The project’s online survey focuses on the community’s ‘care factor’ and allows the community to identify ‘place’ attributes most important to them in their ideal village centre. The survey will open on Tuesday 11 October.

Village street stalls

Community members are invited to visit Richmond Street on the following days to complete a ‘Place-Score Experience’ survey. A variety of questions will be asked including what ‘place’ attributes impact their personal enjoyment of the village. This allows Council to measure how the village is performing relative to other places.

• 10am - 4pm, Friday 14 October 2022, or

• 9am - 3pm, Saturday 15 October 2022

The Wardell community will have further opportunities to contribute and provide feedback on draft designs as the project progresses.

For more information or to complete the online survey visit

TAKE THIS SURVEY to better support disaster recovery systems.

A community survey is now open for flood and landslide affected residents of the Northern Rivers to complete.

The purpose of this survey is to build an independent record of community recovery from the 2022 Northern Rivers floods for people across the region. It will inform the development of improved support systems and policy, with a particular focus on community-led recovery efforts. It can also provide learnings to support increased community resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of natural disasters.

This project is led by Dr Hanabeth Luke of Southern Cross University. The University has partnered with formal and informal community hubs and recovery centres, including Resilient Lismore, Wardell CORE, and Woodburn Recovery Centres, which have been an integral part of the response to the Northern Rivers flood events.

The anonymous survey should take approximately 20 minutes to complete and is available via this link: https://scuau.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b9j9V7NlVByNuce