Lions Club turns pre-loved furniture into community service

Right next door to the Shire’s recycling centre in Dunsmore Road is the Lions Club weekend used furniture market, affectionately known by many Islanders as Steptoes Emporium. This is the Club’s main fund-raising project for its community service.

For many years the Lions club of Phillip Island has operated this yard as a recycling centre. Back in the 1970s it was a bottle and can recycling centre. For the last few decades it’s been a weekend market for used furniture, bric-a-brac and even some building materials.

Generations of Islanders have now donated their pre-loved furniture and other items to the Lions for sale. It’s a win-win situation when these donations find new homes in new houses. Donors are relieved of the need to dispose of pre-loved furniture that no longer fits, nor meets the needs of revised living arrangements. Purchasers can give items a new lease of life. No need to send stuff to landfill!

It’s also good to see items re-purposed, for example kitchen or bathroom tiles can be turned into mosaics for garden paths or works of art, second hand roof sheeting to line chicken coops, old windows become glasshouses for seedlings, used tools always find lots of odd uses, as do used decking timbers.

There are lots of collectibles for sale as well, from crockery to CD’s, even some 78rpm records, from paintings to framed art photos.

Pickups and deliveries can usually be arranged, normally on Saturday and Sunday mornings only. Deliveries incur a small charge. Our Lions drivers, Sam or John or Dave or Rick, can get to most locations on the Island with our updated truck purchased recently with the aid of a Bendigo bank grant.

All the proceeds from the weekend market go towards funding the Lions Club of Phillip Island community service projects, these include contributing each term to the school breakfast program at Cowes Primary School, sponsoring some students to the Lions’ Licola adventure camp and funding vouchers to help school families in need. Outside of the school, Lions have funded local Church-run community meals, purchased equipment for the Cowes Senior Citizens Hall, sponsored the Island Harmony choir, and given equipment and supplies to the PICAL pantry.

Money raised from furniture sales has also gone to disaster relief, helping victims of the Victorian and interstate floods and fires, to medical research, Bass Coast Health, the RCH Good Friday Appeal, the Royal Flying Doctor Service and other charities such as Headspace Gippsland and Children off the Streets.

The Lions’ Steptoes Emporium is open each Saturday and Sunday morning from 09:30 till 12:00 on Sunday and 12:30 on Saturday. Phone the Lions on:  0433 191 654 (text messages preferred).

If anyone would like to put in a few interesting hours helping to display and prepare for sale donated items, the friendly and generous bunch of Lions at Steptoes would welcome new volunteers.

(see Phillip Island & San Remo Advertiser edition Thursday, April 27, 2023   http://www.pisra.com.au )