Destiny Swann, Team Leader in Mental Health, shares her thoughts on the day.
Living in a coastal city like Perth, the beach is fairly accessible and most of us will frequent the beach, walking, hanging out, fishing, swimming. Given this year’s Mental Health Week Theme was ‘strengthening our communities’ we thought holding a Beach Clean could be a unique and positive way to bring together our mental health community and give back to our local coastal communities – humans and wildlife alike – the beach gives so much, just by its very existence.
It was an awesome day and fabulous to see so many new faces along with so many familiar faces for a great turn out of the people we support and staff alike. Everyone was gung-ho to get into the Beach Clean with the promise of a BBQ lunch in return for their hard efforts. We were pleasantly surprised with the small amount of rubbish we were actually able to collect – seemingly our beaches are pristine compared to many coastlines around the world.
All enjoyed a BBQ lunch after the cleaning and we were lucky enough to be donated some Cool Drink (which was quite luxurious) this went down a treat and quenched the thirst. The chicken skewers were another hit on the day. However, the real crowd pleaser was the gift of a Mental Health Week T-Shirt designed by participant Tamara. It was a positive and invigorating day – great to see our community out there, giving back to the wider community and through this, strengthening all of our communities!
We would like to acknowledge WAAMH and Lotterywest for the Mental Health Week Community Grant which contributed towards the equipment needed to complete the beach clean and catering for all participants after.