St Mary’s Primary School in Altona has received $10,000 from the West Gate Neighbourhood Fund to restore a vintage Melbourne tram.
The school received the full size tram in July, which has been sitting unused on the school oval waiting to be refurbished and repurposed into a wellbeing hub for the students.
Principal Sonia Riccardi said the grant will help get the project underway, along with the thousands of dollars raised by the school community.
“We raised more than $20,000 with the parent community through our regular fundraising,” she said.
“Now with this $10,000 we have enough to completely refurbish the tram and get it to a usable state.”
With much work to be done, Ms Riccardi said they have already begun the transformation process.
Glaziers have visited and kicked off the works on replacing the panes.
“One of the biggest things to remove is the lead paint, because it is an old tram which comes with asbestos and lead paint,” Ms Riccardi said.
“That is a major work in making it safe for use, and that will be removed over the school holidays for the safety of the workmen and kids.”
Other works included having it sealed to become watertight, which Ms Riccardi said has been also been done.
“Now we can start working on the inside. We will replace the chairs and make it a space where there are areas to sit down including on the floor,” she said.
“The aim is to have it as a wellbeing tram where they can play board games, sit and read and have a nice quiet space to be in.”
Ms Riccardi said the whole school is excited by the funding , which she announced last week.
“I announced it in the newsletter and posted it on the Facebook page,” she said.
“The parents are really excited because they can see their hard work and fundraising has paid off which is very exciting.”
With no clear date on completion, Ms Riccardi said it would be nice to celebrate the opening on the one year anniversary of the tram’s arrival.
Jennifer Pittorino
