TREE News

Sunflowers, Community Cooking and Interns

Community Sunflower Party

Join our community sunflower party. Sunflowers symbolize intelligence, vitality, and happiness.  Who couldn’t do with an extra dose of any of these in our current lockdown situation.  We have a wonderful supportive community here at Kinross Wolaroi and most certainly within our TREE program – we want to say thank you! 

Send us your address via our Instagram DMs and you’ll receive free sunflower seeds (which have been harvested and collected from last year’s crop), instructions, access to online tutorials on how to plant, grow and nurture your seedlings via our tree_kws Instagram page and most importantly connect with our wonderful community during this time. To date we have over 100 community members joining in on our Sunflower Party!

Mack Johnston – TREE Intern at Whittaker Contracting

When I first heard of the opportunity to undertake an internship, I could not pass it by. I thought geez if somehow I could progress through all these selection stages and land an interview with a potential employer, that would be awesome. On the application due date I submitted a 2000 word essay after working on it until midnight and wondering whether it would be enough. Then after eagerly waiting for a few days I received an email with the details for an interview with Mrs Gavin and Mrs Youll, who are the coordinators of the program. After awkwardly talking my way through the interview – which mustn’t have been terrible – I once again waited eagerly until I received yet another email informing me that I had landed an interview with Whittaker Contracting.

I immediately researched the company and learned that it was a metal fabrication and mechanical business who predominately service mining machinery and equipment. At this moment I knew I had nailed it and was extremely fortunate yet somehow, I almost missed my interview with them. Luckily on the first day of term 3 after returning from the holidays I ran into Mrs Gavin who hurriedly guided me to the front office where we jumped into a car and drove to Whittaker Contracting. After arriving at the site and waiting in the lobby I was greeted by Whittaker's HR Manager, Fabrication Foreman and Mechanical Roreman. I followed them into a large conference room where I was interviewed and successfully secured an internship. I was then given an awesome guided tour around the mechanical and fabrication sites.

A few weeks later after sourcing steel capped boots, high-vis clothing and a compact lunch box, I woke up at 5:00am and caught a taxi to Whittaker Contracting to start at 6:00am. That first day was the beginning of an amazing week, which commenced with being inducted about safety and cleaning. I finished each day with a taxi trip back to the boarding house at 5:00pm.  Over the course of the week I did plenty of cleaning and sweeping – which wasn’t unexpected – but I also got to build a toy metal ute and replace the brake pads on a semi-trailer. I met new people, some of which were ex-Kinross students, and learned new skills. By the end of the week I was exhausted and after giving my thanks to Managing Director, Chris Whittaker, and finishing cleaning the workshop, I caught a taxi back to school where I was greeted with the recent COVID-19 lockdown.

Assistance requested to help support the Uniting Church Hot Meals Program 

TREE and KWS have an ongoing relationship with the Uniting Church’s Hot Meals Program. Whist we have been able to provide baked goods during the lockdown period utilising staff, TWIG students and Food Technology and Hospitality students, we want to ensure that this fantastic and much needed service has the support it needs over the forthcoming holiday period.  If you are a keen baker or simply looking for a way to help out those in need by baking a small batch of sweet treats, I’d love to hear from you at sgavin@kws.nsw.edu.au