By Derek Schlennstedt
IN the heart of Mount Evelyn there is a social enterprise that is cooking and catering with a conscience, and after a turbulent past month its future is looking brighter than ever.
The enterprise is called ‘Tasty AZ Community Connections’, and following a notice to vacate their previous premises on Mangans Road in June, the Social Enterprise was left homeless.
But, a rare opportunity to relocate to Mount Evelyn Main Street has founder Jule Morman ecstatic and excited about the new opportunities.
“It’s always been my dream to create a training school and make it very tangible and non-clinical and offer real activities,” she said.
“What we’re going doing to do here is embrace what we’ve always stood for – that is – offering opportunities for young adults for cooking, training and life skills and employability, and to assist them with supported employment and help them in achieving and transitioning into open employment.”
Since its inception in 2013 Tasty Az Community Connections has blossomed into a catering and hospitality service that provides specialist training and experience for young people living with disabilities.
While they will continue to offer those services Ms Morman said she looks forward to diversifying and providing even more training for young people, from the new site.
“We’ve got this beautiful heart of our new establishment, where we’ll set up the studio and do demonstration cooking from here,” Ms Morman said.
“Our beautiful kitchen over here enables us to continue with our catering business which will support our venture.”
“Now the community will be able to come and see what’s going on too.
“They can come and order a coffee and look in the display fridge and see what our team have made on the day and purchase some cakes if they want.”
The enterprise is still in the process of building and re-arranging the site to fit their needs, though an October opening isn’t far-off.
Ms Morman said none of it would have been possible without the support of Yarra Ranges Council and the Mount Evelyn community, who she thanked for their help.
“We’ve been so lucky to have the support of the community, council and Stan Van Leewen among others.”
“A big philosophy is to invest in the community, so we are really looking forward to being a par fo this community and purchasing all our need from local bakeries and growers and engage local trades.”
Ms Morman said she was looking forward to growing the enterprise into a school that helps youth learn first-hand about food preparation and hygenie and gives them the skills to obtain a job.
“I’m really excited about the school … we love to cook, cater, provide and connect, but the diversity of what we are going to be able to offer from this site is great and we really look forward to hopefully growing into this lovely community.”
