Celebrating the good in the community.
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Lithgow Information and Neighbourhood Centre (LINC) is a place that many people in the community go for a multitude of services. And on Wednesday, May 12, those services were celebrated for Neighbourhood Centre Week.
"This is a chance to showcase what services we provide and for people to come to the centre and meet the people behind those services," LINC Community Hub manager Leanne Walding said.
Disability Services
Disability Services run and support individual living, group and support programs five days a week and seven days with in home one on one support.
They offer NDIS Plan Management to help residents understand and implement their NDIS plan and help them achieve their goals.
There are individual support services such as domestic assistance, support with activities of daily living, assistance with shopping, help to participate in social groups, help to attend appointments and more.
Support Coordination Services are also available with linking residents to suitable providers to help them reach their NDIS Plan goals. They monitor service bookings and budget, and assist to make connection with mainstream and community supports.
There is also the Limitless Day Program that is a centre based, skill building and healthy lifestyle focused group for individuals with a disability. Each day is a different activity including craft activities, lunch outings, morning tea outings, swimming, or shopping trips. The Wednesday Group also volunteer together to deliver meals to the elderly from 11 to 1pm.
The group will also be starting up a Men's Group where men with a disability can come together and do group activities.
Lithgow Cares
Communities and Kids is a supported playgroup schedule.
- Monday: They are at Portland Central School, 10am-12pm.
- Tuesday: The Good Start Program through referral only, Story Time at Wallerawang and Portland Libraries 10.30am
- Wednesday: Gowrie Playgroup 10-11.30am at 88 Landa Street, Bowenfels
- Thursday: Cooerwull Primary School hall, 9.30-11.30am.
They also offer pamper sessions at LINC and at the Hub on Landa Street.
They also run a Circle of Security Parenting Program which runs each school terms with families or early childhood facilities.
All groups are free and the organisers just ask that everyone brings a piece of fruit and water bottle for morning tea.
Contact Jackie or Donna on 63545906 or 0447322582 for more information about the services offered.
Commonwealth Home Support Program
The CHSP in Lithgow has the aim of keeping the elderly in their homes for longer with home maintenance help.
The CHSP can provide home maintenance services relating specifically to safety and access, such as repairing a set of stairs or as simple as changing a lightbulb.
They can also offer garden maintenance that can help with mild pruning and weeding of the garden beds and lawn maintenance that helps maintain the upkeep of your lawn if it is getting too hard to maintain on your own.
The service is only available to those in the Lithgow CBD and is negotiated depending on the size of the job and their capacity.
They also run a $5 LINC shopping bus, which is accompanied shopping every Monday at Lithgow Valley Plaza.
They run Flo's Kitchen which is a daytime activity for seniors which is held at LINC every Tuesday from 10.30 to 12.30pm. On the fourth Tuesday they go to another nearby venue for lunch.
There is an Aged Day Service called Doreen's Place which is a day care centre for the frail aged people with dementia and Alzheimer's. The service operates on a Thursday and Friday in a family home environment which provides socialisation for a small number of people and respite for their carers. There is also overnight respite available.
Community lunches take place every Wednesday and the LINC bus will pick up residents and take them home after a lunch at a nearby venue.
The group also offers Meals on Wheels, dropping frozen and hot meals to residents homes.
To access any of these services you have to registered with MyAgedCare.
Boomerang Bags
The ladies from Boomerang Bags make shopping bad from donated and second hand material as a way to get rid of single use plastic.
The group has grown steadily over the last few years, having created over 2859 bags thus far.
They are also now making produce bags that can be bought for a small fee.
Every Friday from 10.30 to 2.30pm the group meets in the LINC hall to sew the bags and have a social gathering.
The women said that you don't have to be a sewer, you could cut, iron, make coffee.
"But the sewing isn't rocket science and we have helped new people learn some new skills, it is such a wonderful group of women," they said.
"It is social we share our joy and sorrow and come together because we felt like doing something for our environment."
Second Bite
The program which runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday sees volunteers collect vegetables, fruit, and bread from Coles before they weigh and count everything and enter it into a system to record how much they received.
It isn't a come and take what you want though; the volunteers will see how much they have and evenly distribute it to the community members.
The food collected are items that would have been taken off the shelf that day, that are no longer for sale but are still good to eat.
Both Woolworths and Aldi also contribute to the program.
LINC is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm and General Manager Lydia Commins said they hope to continue expanding their programs.
"We welcome all community members because are always here to help," she said.
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