Community Fund celebrates a decade of helping Hobsons Bay

HBCF committee members Helen McVay, John Clarke, Kerri Pyne and David Mattner. Photo: Joe Mastroianni

A decade of service to the communities of Hobsons Bay features in a new publication.

The work of the philanthropic Hobsons Bay Community Fund (HBCF) is celebrated in a new brochure that highlights the help the fund has given diverse groups and organisations since 2006.

Committee member John Clarke said he is proud to be part of the fund after joining about five years ago.

“It’s really expanded over the 10 years – there was a big lift in our corpus in 2013 when the state government offered to match $100,000 if we raised $100,000, which we did,” he said.

Mr Clarke said local business and industry, including Toll and Qenos, have played a key role in enabling the fund to grow and increasing the size of the grants it delivers each year.

“We are a perpetual fund; we use the interest each year to make the grants, and the number of grants is getting stronger each year,” he said.

“Each year the committee follows up with one of the groups … it’s great to see what’s happening – for many of these organisations in their start-up phase, it can be very positive.”

Mr Clarke said rather than resting on their laurels after 10 years’ good work, committee members have set an ambitious goal.

“We have set ourselves a target of $1 million in the corpus,” he said. “We are looking at various strategies – industry is one, but the other is bequests.”

Find more about the HBCF, go to www.hbcommunityfund.org.au.