Wimmera parkrun award recognition

Wimmera River parkrun has won Horsham Rural City Council’s Australia Day community event of the year award.

The organiser of the weekly Horsham community fun run says volunteer and participant efforts in 2022 are to thank for the event’s Australia Day award recognition.

Nearly 2000 people have participated in the weekly five-kilometre walk, run or jog along the river-side course that starts at Sawyer Park every Saturday at 8am.

Wimmera River parkrun organiser Andrew Sostheim said he was proud of the event’s recognition at this year’s awards, and he was glad volunteers and participants won recognition for their community contributions.

“When I look at the hours our volunteers put in every week, we do punch above our weight because our volunteers are there every weekend, rain, hail or shine. The community owns this event. It is their award,” he said.

Wimmera River parkrun is a free event for people of all fitness levels. It launched in 2018.

Mr Sostheim said it had been ‘wonderful’ to see community engagement and participation increase at the weekly events after COVID-19 restrictions eased.

“Our volunteer numbers have been fantastic and locals and tourists have found the event a great way to kick off their weekends,” he said.

“Just last weekend we had 80 participants, with 17 first timers.

“The event also clocked over a combined 65,000 kilometres along our Wimmera River course since the run launched.”

There are also weekly parkrun events in Nhill, Edenhope and Ararat.

A first-time registration is required for new parkrun participants and can be completed online via parkrun.com.au/wimmerariverhorsham

Horsham

Rural City Council’s citizen of the year will be recognised at a special ceremony tomorrow, honouring her extensive bereavement counselling of mourning parents.

Dianne Lewis, Horsham municipality’s Australia Day 2023 citizen of the year award winner, said the award was ‘humbling’.

“There are lots of people in Horsham who were very deserving of this award,” she said.

Mrs Lewis has worked for Compassionate Friends Victoria since 1992 and has welcomed hundreds of grieving parents into her home for a cup of tea and a chat across her 30 years of service.

Compassionate Friends Victoria organises peer support groups for people to ‘grieve, find healing, and grow’ after the death of a child, at any age and cause.

Mrs Lewis offered her service to the organisation after her lived experience with the death of her son.

She said it was a ‘simple’ case of opening up her home for people to come and have a ‘cuppa and a cry’.

“Across the years I have had perhaps 200 people in my home, and they have all been in a similar boat as I was – trying to cope with the death of their child,” she said.

“There are professional counsellors, of course, who can help people with these matters as well, however often they wear many hats for many people –they might be dealing with people with a gambling addiction or marital problem.

“I just deal with grieving parents. It can be hard to understand their pain, unless you have lost a child yourself.”

Mrs Lewis also spends her time as manager of the Wimmera Health Care Group Auxiliary Opportunity Shop in Horsham three days a week and has been a Lions Club of Horsham member for six years.

She has spent a decade as a foster parent for children across the region and maintains an eye on an elderly Nhill couple receiving treatment for cancer, who she offered the spare bedroom in her house.

She said she was unsure who had ‘dobbed’ her in for the award.

“I like working behind the scenes for the community, I guess. If the community has been good to you, and it has been to me, it is important to give back,” she said.