OUR VALUES
Welcome to Marmalade.
OUR MISSION
Steeped in the values of the CWA, utilizing old wisdom and new knowledge to grow, share and feed our community.
Bringing sustainable local grown foods for the community whilst nurturing our environment and valuing those who attempt to find this balance within the constraints
of our society.
OUR HOPES
• Connect small, local, seasonal producers with the community.
• Provide a space to preserve and upcycle excess produce for community access.
• Offer bulk items with minimal packaging to reduce our carbon footprint, embracing a bring-your-own-container ethos.
• Create a learning environment for sharing traditional and modern skills, such as pasta making, sugo making, sewing, and knitting.
• Facilitate direct interactions between growers and small businesses to collaboratively provide fresh, healthy local foods.
• Serve as a gathering place that supports and strengthens our entire community.
OUR PLAN
The business is a self-sustaining social enterprise, where the CWA building will provide a commercial kitchen, a shop front, public liability, manager, and daily running/maintenance costs to enable the whole community access to produce/products which support community health.
The structure will be much like a market, whereby vendors can buy space to sell items, but will not be required to be onsite to sell the items. To be independent and sustainable the social enterprise will receive income from rental of the commercial kitchen space, retail space, small groups and local memberships to cover the ongoing running costs and reimburse shop coordinator for their valuable time.
OUR STORY
Why We Started Marmalade.
We had the privilege of spending our childhoods in loving families and small supportive communities, which were deeply connected to the cycle of life, intricately noticing seasons, growth flora and fauna and the interconnect, and the extended family of the community who helped raise and educate us. Instilling the knowledge that we were part of these cycles and could heavily influence these cycles, and much can be learnt from the wisdom of nature.
For Narelle’s, the centre of the community was a Co-op where we all got our supplies and shared produce, shared stories, supported those who needed it, and developed the wisdom that everyone benefits when giving and kindness is the central value.
Launching a career in health and thirty years later, she has experienced birth, death, raw joy, tragedy, sadness and observed the slow disconnect to community and our environment. As she continues to work in this space and see mental ill-health, sadness and loneliness overwhelm our system, it is realized and seen that reconnecting our community, being active, feeding ourselves and our surrounding with good food, love, and joy, whoever you are, is the only way to thrive.
So, drawing on our life experience and dreams, the luck that has landed us in Witchcliffe, which has the strong feel of environmental connect and community, we feel the time is right to share our dream and create a local produce hub that breathes our ethos of a connected life.
How you can be involved?
• Bring your excess produce to sell/swap to Marmalade.
• Be a vendor where you have space to sell your own produce/product.
• Hire the kitchen to value add to excess produce and sell.
• Become a local member, where you can access larder items and local produce at a cost-plus price, and a discount on other products as directed by individual vendors.
• Come and sit on the couch, have a chat and be.