Glenn and Ros were living in Canberra while they established Zac’s place in both Yass and Harden, commuting backwards and forwards for several years.
In early 2015, Glenn retired from his electrician career and threw himself wholeheartedly into the area of “people” that he was made for.
Zac’s Place was established in 2011 after a three-year experience serving in Zac’s Place in Swansea in Wales, UK.
Their mission is to become a meaningful community for those on the fringes who need support in a variety of ways.
They pride themselves on working with other community organisations wherever they are able.
They run complimentary programs and spend time and energy on forming relationships with services.
Zac’s Place is expanding into providing short term crisis housing in rural areas, where often there are little or no housing options for those who may find themselves homeless for a wide variety of reasons, including flood or fire.
Often these people are forced to move to another town or city a great distance away from their support networks when they need them most.
The first step in this initiative has already begun with a house in Harden having been renovated by Zac’s Place and the community, which is now up and running and accepting those in need.
On the 13th of September 2015, Glenn and Ros opened the doors to the Hard Rock Gym in Harden. This is no ordinary gym…though it does look like one. This gym has a community focus, for fitness, health, well-being and some other…not so gym like activities!
As well as being a fully functional gym, the space is used for a whole range of activities from dance classes, martial arts, seniors classes, meeting rooms, conferences, and concerts.
Lots of it is funded personally but they also run on donations (of money and time) and grant approvals from excellent applications written by Ros. They have run quite a few charity events over the years too, to raise money for Zac’s Place.
Other amazing things they do:
• Ros ran “Angel Tree” – a program where she sought donations, purchased and hand-delivered presents to children whose parent/s were in prison on behalf of the parent/s. The idea is that the children still feel loved and thought of by their parents on Christmas Day.
• Fostered children from 2011 until recently, who have significant trauma backgrounds; continue to maintain contact and support of these young adults. They even facilitated a holiday for one of the young adults interstate to meet her mother for the first time since she had been in the foster care system.
• Enable the families in their crisis housing to maintain meaningful jobs/income; provide social support through counselling and even include them in our own family events (including Christmas Day!).
• Run seniors classes at the gym.
• Facilitate 1:1 sessions and group classes for people with disabilities.
• Glenn runs exercise classes for farmers.
• They purchased the old ambulance station to house crisis accommodation.
• St. Vincent’s use the gym for interviews. Their newest dream is to have a fully accessible gym for people of all abilities – wheelchair users, hearing and sight-impaired, and are in talks with an Occupational Therapist to get this going.
The Australian Disability Service Conference has announced outstanding finalists across 12 categories for the inaugural Australian Disability Service Awards.
Hard Rock Gym is one of three 2021 finalists for the Most Outstanding Remote Service Program, for their physical, emotional and social support program.
Announcements will be made on 17th February 2022 at the International Convention Centre Darling Harbour for the collective celebration and announcement of the winners.
This is a truly inspirational pair, who are so deserving of the award for Citizens of the Year.