Our vision is to engage and strengthen our community through activities in the growing, harvesting and processing of food as well as providing spaces for play, meeting and community celebration.

Our goals are:

• To develop a strong, continual presence in the open space adjacent to Hazel Orme Kindergarten through a long-term lease with the City of Fremantle managed through a Not for Profit Incorporated Association;
• To design, implement and sustain a combination of short, medium and long-term food crops on site (herbs, vegetables and trees);
• To create a multi-purpose building that provides a focus and catalyst for local food production and processing. This space will be a permanent home for WGV Playgroup and available for use by other community groups;
• To increase the harvest and processing of local food production in White Gum Valley, bringing people together and at the same time reducing waste of produce. This will also supplement on-site food production and enable the immediate start to processing of produce from slower growing fruit trees;
• build connections with the Italian Retirement Village across the road and also with individuals within the greater White Gum Valley area, to gain knowledge of “slow foods” held by an older generation and to have a vibrant cross generational use of the building;
• Continue to grow community support through building the current Orchard group membership into a vibrant community organisation.

Over 2014-15 we developed a concept plan for the proposed site and involved the community as well as fruit tree specialists in finalising the design.  The concept plan identifies the basic infrastructure for the site and the 4 main planting zones.

Our attention has also turned to funding the orchard development and we are reaching out to a diverse mix – federal and state grants, our bank – Fremantle Bendigo Bank, our membership and the broader community including local businesses. We acknowledge with thanks our local council for assisting us with site security, Bendigo Bank for funding our initial retic costs and Fed Gov’s Stronger Communities Program for our grant to build our shed and plant further zones in 2016.

The orchard organisation is made up of around 40 members, 200 supporters and led by a management committee made of about 15 regular folk from the Valley and nearby suburbs like South Fremantle and Palmyra. Within this committee are 8 elected members including Steph Jennings as convenor, Teresa Matassa as deputy convenor and Mike Mackie as Treasurer.

We operate under this WGV Orchard Inc Constitution-Updated-24Nov-2024.