Sod turning ceremony signals start of the Kiah Hall rebuild

On Monday, February 27 a large group of community members came together to celebrate a milestone in the Kiah Community Hall rebuild project.

During the ground breaking ceremony several local representatives along with the president of the Friends of the Kiah Hall committee, Clare McMahon presented speeches of thanks to the community, for their support and involvement.

During her opening speech Ms McMahon said the committee had received an overwhelming amount of support from Kiah residents and the broader Bega Valley community for the rebuild of their beloved hall, after it was destroyed during the Black Summer fires in January 2020.

"When we first started, there was a lot of sympathy out there for places that got burned and especially for Kiah because we got hit so hard, therefore we had people from everywhere donate money to us for the rebuild," she said.

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Ms McMahon said she was especially grateful to the numerous local charities and community groups that went above and beyond to assist them in the rebuild.

"So many charities have got us to where we are and what a milestone today is," she said.

Ms McMahon said with the generous community donations they were able to raise close to $44,000, which greatly assisted the committee in purchasing the adjoining land which used to be home to the Our Lady of the Princes Highway Church, in August 2020.

"That was good seed money and it allowed us to buy the church grounds which was for sale before the fires and was a lot of land that we didn't want to lose, since it had been part of the community for over 100 years," she said.

The lot provided an ideal location for the community hall rebuild given its location on the crest of the hill, its proximity to other facilities in the precinct and its potential to be a more cost-effective building site.

The construction works for the Kiah Community Hall Rebuild Project began in the last week of February, with surveying and establishment of the site already complete.

During the ground breaking ceremony Bega Valley Shire Mayor Russell Fitzpatrick announced that the works were predicted to be complete by end of August 2023.

"If all goes well and there are no rain delays, it'll be open in August," he said.

The rebuild contract has been undertaken by Edwards Constructions, a company that has worked in the region for almost 40 years.

Managing Director at Edwards Construction, Samuel Edwards, said they were looking forward to hire and involved local tradesmen in the re-build of the community hall.

"The Kiah and Wandella communities can look forward to having their halls built by locals tradesmen, we are aiming for over 80 per cent local involvement on site," he said.

"It is terrific to see the community come together in the rebuilding of these important assets, we at Edwards' hope to play a small part in the mending of the community fabric that these community halls clearly represent and we are proud to be associated with the effort."

Cr Fitzpatrick made many members of the audience laugh during his speech at the sod turning ceremony when he recounted the moment when Ms McMahon had been told about funding from the BLER package by Andrew Constance the former local member and Minister for Transport and Roads.

"Andrew had come down to tell Clare he had a million dollars to help rebuild the community hall and she sat down in the chair and couldn't actually talk that was the first time I've actually seen her speechless and I don't know whether I'll see that again," he said.

When Andrew Constance was invited to get up and say a few words the first thing he had said was how strong the Kiah and Bega Valley community was and how inspired he was by the resilience and joy in this next re-build stage.

"It was the community itself that got everybody through this awful period from the worst drought in our living memory, to the worst fires we've ever had, to the floods and COVID-19, but we're all here together and that's something that's really special," he said.

Mr Constance finished by saying it was through the help of those who often stay in the background like the various charity groups and friends of the Kiah hall committee members that the re-build truly moved forward.

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