Gympie Recovery Accommodation Park

February floods. We lost our home, which is just down the road, two storey house and the floods came halfway up the windows upstairs. A lot of people asked me what the Gympie recovery accommodation park is. It was a place we'd set up for people who were displaced by the floods in Gympie in 2022. We knew that the former Gympie caravan park had been abandoned and was sitting there vacant. The Government was looking for other options, more sustainable options. But the key thing was we could get people onto this site within a week with a little bit of work. If the park wasn't there, I don't know what I'd be doing right now. We'd be homeless, living out of our car. But thank God the park was there. A year on and things are changing.

It’s amazing watching the journey. We've seen individuals and households come into the park who have huge amounts of trauma. So much better. Bedrooms for everybody, a roof over a head, space for the animals. It was such a relief. And I think the best bit is that you know that you're making a difference and you can see that tangible change in people's lives.

I do get goose bumps. I feel a huge sense of pride from, you know, what the teams achieved. Us being here is about supporting them onto the next great thing that they're going to go on to. Accommodation, employment. There's a plan for the future with local government, the state government and various departments to say this can be a bit of a blueprint moving forward and how we can do this and support other communities. For the residents who have gone through this construction with us they've seen the park evolve, they've also felt part of it. So I think it's a pretty amazing place to work and I think it's just going to go from strength to strength. The park was definitely home for us while we were there, and now we've got our own place we can call home.