The Mosaic Matters group started as a way for Mundijong and SJ locals to explore their creative abilities while surrounded by community.
Over the years, local businesses and community members have supported the group’s work through donations and expertise.
So, after 10 successful years, the members felt it was time to create a thing of beauty for the community which had given them so much.
And the group settled on a commemorative bench seat for the Mundijong War Memorial.
“I was so overjoyed that they came up with something that was so meaningful,” Mundijong Heritage Uniting Church Community Liaison Marilyn Marsden said. “I felt proud of them.”
The Bendigo Bank offered to fund the project, and Evie Dowell was tasked with drawing up the design for the bench seat.
“I live in Whitby, and every year around this time the red poppies start springing up,” she said. “I knew I wanted to include them in the design.”
The poppies fill the foreground of the seat, while a sun rises over the hills of the Darling Scarp behind them.
“And rosemary in flower frames the scene,” Evie said.
It frustratingly took two years for everything to fall in place before the bench was able to be installed.
“But we were so dead keen to get it done before ANZAC Day,” Marilyn said.
And they achieved that, with the install completed in February.
And members of the Serpentine Jarrahdale RSL Sub-branch are thrilled at the result.
“We think it’s a wonderful thing,” Secretary Mark Keynes said.
“It’s always good for a community group to do something to honour the fallen and the past. And the design is perfect – poppies are universally recognised as a symbol of remembrance.”
The group has tentative plans to create a sister seat with the shire pre-approving a second installation, and Evie said she’s already got a design ready to go.
The Serpentine Jarrahdale RSL, in collaboration with the Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale, are hosting a Dawn Service at Mundijong on April 25, from 5.40am, with a traditional Gunfire Breakfast straight after. A community procession and commemorative service will be held later in the morning, from 8.30am, followed by a morning tea.
