How it all began
I had an idea. My neighbour Sally and I had been sharing a party kit for some time; a joint collection of kids plates, cups, bowls and cutlery that we’d use for parties. What if had a kit like this that we could share with the entire community? What if I could make it easy to have a plastic-free and waste-free party?
So on the 30th of July 2019 I stood up in front of a crowd at the Dutch Trading Co and pitched my idea for having plastic-free parties in our local community. Vic Park Soup is a regular micro-granting dinner hosted by the Vic Park Collective (and supported by our local Rotary Club) as a way to fund creative projects that benefit the Town of Victoria Park community. Basically everybody pays $10 at the door for a bowl of soup and a chance to vote. All the money is collected and handed to the pitch with the most votes.
The other two pitches were amazing and I won by ONE vote! The winnings tallied up to $1130 – an amazing seed fund for a little community business aiming to save waste from landfill (not make lots of money!).
The money will go towards the subscription for this website, buying extra kits (ideally secondhand if I can find them), and paying a local person to make bunting and other decorations. I hope to also use some of the money to advertise locally.
If you were there on the night, thank you for your support. If you’re new here, thanks for reading about our humble beginning. It’s great to know we’ve got such a supportive community who are keen to see an idea like this get off the ground.
If you haven’t already it would be great if you shared our website with your local friends and family so refusing single-use plastic and hiring reusable partyware instead becomes the new norm!