{"id":4706,"date":"2010-10-01T02:39:32","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T18:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/curtin-volunteers-hit-the-wheatbelt\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:06:34","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:06:34","slug":"curtin-volunteers-hit-the-wheatbelt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/curtin-volunteers-hit-the-wheatbelt\/","title":{"rendered":"Curtin volunteers hit the Wheatbelt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three busloads of Curtin volunteers are at the vanguard of a movement that will see 500 students tackle 40 community projects across regional WA this month.<\/p>\n

Student Guild president Jess Short is co-leading a Curtin Volunteers!<\/em> pub-painting odyssey – to the small Wheatbelt town of Coorow – that is rolling out of Perth today.<\/p>\n

“We are going to Coorow and we are painting the pub,” Ms Short said.<\/p>\n

The Coorow project will see students work with local residents to restore the community hotel to its original 1930s grandeur.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
John Curtin Weekend volunteers at a previous Kulin Bush Races meet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“We’ve got 12 people going up – pretty much from the Guild, and one random Guild supporter,” Ms Short said.<\/p>\n

Van Morrison and the Spice Girls feature heavily on the songlist she has chosen for the three-hour bus trip.<\/p>\n

The Coorow pub paint is one of many volunteer events arranged as part of the 11th annual John Curtin Weekend.<\/p>\n

The program of weekend events starts today and runs until the end of October.<\/p>\n

“It’s fantastic,” said Ms Short who has now been on four John Curtin Weekend trips.<\/p>\n

“You feel so welcomed by the community and it’s a great way to meet and get to know real West Australian people who are living in rural communities.”<\/p>\n

But experience has shown that occupational hazards can come with the turf.<\/p>\n

“I think there’ll be lots of paint fights,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I’m worried about getting paint in my hair.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, another 30-strong Curtin Volunteers!<\/em> team has chartered two buses to the Wheatbelt town of Kulin to lend a hand at the local bush races.<\/p>\n

Curtin career development consultant Lauren Taylor is co-organising that trip.<\/p>\n

“It’s a really good feeling to work with these local communities,” Ms Taylor said.<\/p>\n

“It showcases Curtin as a very community-minded university and volunteering can be an important opportunity for career and personal development.”<\/p>\n

She said that half her team was made up of international students – hailing from as far afield as Singapore, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Norway and the USA.<\/p>\n

“It’s a good way for international students in particular to see life in the country,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Curtin team will paint faces and read stories in the children’s activity area, patrol the races’ entry gate, and serve food and wine to punters.<\/p>\n

Ms Taylor said the team would work from 11am to 8pm on Saturday, before enjoying a hard-earned rest and beverage while listening to the bands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three busloads of Curtin volunteers at vanguard of a movement that will see 500 students tackle 40 community projects across WA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 17:07:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4706"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}