Environmental project awards winner

parklands in partnership with the Wodonga Community Correctional Services (CCS) won first place in the 2004 Community Work Partnership Awards, Category 4, Environmental Projects.  The project award is designed to acknowledge the environmental project work conducted by offenders/prisoners in partnership with the community and/or other agencies.  It attracted 60 submissions from Community Correctional Services and Prisons, both private and public from throughout Victoria.

The partnership began in 1998, firstly supervised through the enthusiastic eye of parklands staff member Mick Scolyer and currently through the competence of Rick Pascoe.  The program provides offenders with the opportunity to put back into the community something that thousands of residents and visitors to the Albury Wodonga region can utilise today and for years to come.

Offenders are involved in the general maintenance of parkalnds structures and buildings, revegetation projects and teh creation of wetlands areas. The program promotes positive social interactions between staff, offenders and members of teh public, as well as personal and social responsibility.

The program has engendered pride and a sense of community in the offenders, and assists with preparing offenders in securing paid employment through a number of community contracts they make while completing their unpaid community work.

The Judge of the competition stated that "this project assists thousands of people in the community.  It delivers excellent results to teh cities of Albury and Wodonga".