Club Aruma welcomes Latrobe Valley community

From treasure hunters to disc jockeys to market moguls and more, the Latrobe Valley’s newest Club in town has something for all local people with disability.

We’re bringing Club Aruma to people with a disability who are looking for more opportunities to get involved with their community.

To celebrate, our team hosted an Open Day at both Morwell and Moe sites on Friday, 13 December, welcoming the community.

After significant work over the last 12 months to revamp the organisation’s community services model, Club Aruma is the evolution of Aruma’s former Social and Community Participation.

This club empowers local people with a disability to select activities and special interest groups that resonate with their preferences, enabling them to connect with peers and explore their interests.

For instance, Club Aruma is supporting local NDIS participants like Jordan and Anthony to enhance skills like taking charge of their money and learning how to run a business. As part of the Club’s Independent Money Skills program, Aruma’s Morwell team have recently started supporting customers to host a market stall every Thursday.

Support Worker Adam Skilbeck helps run the popular program.

We support customers to manage their money, putting aside some savings and working to a budget,

We were simulating a supermarket at the Club’s hub where customers would get a set amount of pretend money to purchase some grocery items we collect from our homes. This morphed into the idea to host a market stall at Holmes Rd Market in Morwell, which we’ve just started doing.

Several customers work together to gather donated and newly purchased items to sell at the stall.

So far, they’ve made $100 from three stall sessions where they sell a range of items including clothes, jewellery, books and games.

They take the lead on purchasing and collecting the items to sell, setting the prices and serving market customers each week, Adam said.

Customer Jordan has taken on the task of managing the books and itemising what’s for sale.

He receives money from customers, giving change and recording sales.

He said: I like being the boss.

The Open Day showcased this market stall, alongside other activities including treasure hunting with metal detectors, grooving to some tunes from Gippsland FM presenter and customer Anthony and listening to smooth dolce tones of Sally.